In the remote village of Lajamanu, the Indigenous Warlpiri millennials of Australia’s Northern Territory have devised a language of their own creation: a medley of traditional Warlpiri, Standard Australian English and Kriol, an Aussie brand of Creole.
It’s what the kids are speaking, according to Atlas Obscura.
The new language was developed over some 40 years as generations of Warlpiri incorporated different grammatical aspects of the three spoken languages through the decades. The Light Warlpiri amalgamation is now known as a “(signal) for being young and from that community.”
It’s estimated that only about 350 to 450 people speak this unique language — which lacks both a future tense and a conventional written form.
The only known attempt of writing Light Warlpiri words so far has been displayed in true millennial fashion — on social media platforms such as in Instagram photo captions where always it’s a dealer’s choice of spelling and grammatical elements.
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