Internationally, some creoles are national languages, as with Bislama in Vanuatu or Krio in Sierra Leone. Kriol is a fully-functional, expressive language and can be used in all facets of life.

Words like roih and ngarra that differ based on geography also exemplify how different dialects have evolved across the large area where Kriol is spoken. A few hundred kilometres away in Beswick, the word roih is used to describe the same thing. In Ngukurr, you ngarra when you look surreptitiously. While most of Kriol’s lexicon is derived from English, words like dilbak, from traditional languages, make a small but important contribution to distinguishing Kriol further from English. But if you knocked it over, you might use the verb dilbak. You can spilim ti to make your cuppa once the billy has boiled. Spilim, from “spill”, means to pour liquid intentionally. Drand, from “drowned”, simply means to go underwater. Sometimes, a word might be a recognisable English form, but the meaning is unique to Kriol. Kriol has finer distinctions and its speakers use four pronouns to cover what English speakers use only we for. For example, Kriol speakers use the English word we (spelled wi) but the Kriol wi and English we are false friends. In legitimising the language, linguists and Kriol speakers showed that it was rule-governed and distinct from English. The name Kriol was introduced and, fifty years later, it remains. In the 1960s and 70s, linguists challenged the idea that creole languages were unsophisticated, lacking rules and a poor imitation of English.īible translation and academic research began to demonstrate that what was dismissed as Pidgin English was actually a language. The label Kriol is now used uncontroversially in many (but not all) places, but it took several generations to be legitimised. In the fringes of Kriol country, some communities have recently created new languages, like Light Warlpiri and Gurindji Kriol, that systematically mix Kriol with the original language of the community. English is usually reserved for dealings with white people and traditional languages so endangered they are barely heard. Over the course of a century, Kriol has spread or emerged in many other northern remote communities and where it has, it dominates daily life. Bound together by a Pidgin English developed in New South Wales, they developed it into a fully-fledged creole: a language in its own right with a distinctive vocabulary, sound system and grammatical rules. The genesis of Northern Australia’s creole language is attributed to a combination of factors, including the expansion of the pastoral industry into the Northern Territory and Kimberleys, the violent frontier deaths that swiftly diminished the numbers of speakers of local Indigenous languages, and the establishment of missions.Īt the Roper River Mission (now Ngukurr), established in 1908, Aboriginal children from various traumatised language groups were placed into dormitories with reduced parental contact. But that association is a red herring.Īs you enter Minyerri community, an old sign reads in Kriol ‘Minyerri is our place’. Some may immediately associate the word “creole” with southern USA, which is home to French-influenced culture, cooking and language. It will debut internationally in London this June, coinciding with celebrations for Shakespeare’s 400th anniversary.īut what is Kriol? Well, Kriol is (not surprisingly) a creole language. The critically acclaimed King Lear adaption The Shadow King (2013) was partially translated into Kriol by Aboriginal actor and musician Tom E Lewis (main image).

Kriol is now even a language of Shakespeare.

Linguists put the number of Kriol speakers closer to 20,000, knowing that census data struggles to accurately capture high levels of multilingualism in remote Aboriginal communities. No one really knows how many people speak it, but the 2011 census figure of 4,000 is certainly an under-representation. The correct answer – Kriol – is not a traditional Indigenous language, but refers to the creole language spoken across swathes of northern Australia. But if someone asked: “which language, only found in Australia, is spoken over an area the size of Spain and is the second most common language in the Northern Territory?” would you get it right? It’s not a trivia question I’ve come across.

White man speaking pidgin english