Warlpiri Cultural Survival

Culture is beautiful and unique. Each and very different culture have stories to tell and learn from and give insight on a whole new outlook on life. Because of this, it's increasingly important to keep these cultures alive and thriving. The Warlpiri people are keeping their culture alive through the use of arts and language.

Arts:

In the past, the Warlpiri people would express themselves through art on wood, sand, and even the body. The art told stories and was a means of documenting important events throughout the community as well as their use in celebrations and rituals such as ""kurdiji" mentioned in a previous post (Warlpiri Cosmos). Nowadays, body painting is still used in rituals, but also has moved into modern day times with the use of paints and oils on canvas, still telling the story of long ago stories and ancestors.

Language:

Warlpiri is one of the largest aboriginal languages in Australia with approximately 3,000 people still speaking it today. As with any language, the elders are always afraid that as their offspring get older, the ancient language will one day be forgotten and put to rest. This is not the case of the Warlpiri. Lately, the young Warlpiri members have more than embraced their native language and have created a new version of it called "Warlpiri Rampaku" or Light Warlpiri. To get this new creation, children have combined their own Warlpiri language with bits of English and even Kriol thrown in. What started out between children has now spread to even older adults in the tribe and has grown in number of speakers tremendously. It is stressed that Light Warlpiri is not a mashing of languages together, but the creation of a whole new language with noun and verb structures from it's parent languages. I have provided a video below for further explanation:

http://www.nytimes.com/video/science/100000002337740/linguist-finds-a-language-in-its-infancy.html?smid=pl-share