27-546: The Finke River , or Larapinta in the Indigenous Arrernte language , is a river in central Australia , whose bed courses through the Northern Territory and the state of South Australia . It is one of the four main rivers of Lake Eyre Basin and is thought to be the oldest riverbed in the world. It flows for only a few days a year. When this happens, its water usually disappears into the sands of
54-423: A consonant in fact select the bisyllabic variant. Stress falls on the first nucleus preceded by a consonant, which by this analysis can be stated more uniformly as the second underlying syllable. And the frequentative is formed by reduplicating the final VC syllable of the verb stem; it does not include the final [ə] . Central/Eastern Arrernte orthography does not write word-initial /ə/ , and adds an e to
81-604: Is a dialect cluster in the Arandic language group spoken in parts of the Northern Territory , Australia, by the Arrernte people . Other spelling variations are Arunta or Arrarnta , and all of the dialects have multiple other names. There are about 1,800 speakers of Eastern / Central Arrernte , making this dialect one of the widest spoken of any Indigenous language in Australia, the one usually referred to as Arrernte and
108-499: Is argued to be VC(C), with obligatory codas and no onsets . Underlying phrase-initial /ə/ is realised as zero, except before a rounded consonant where, by a rounding process of general applicability, it is realised as [ʊ] . It is also common for phrases to carry a final [ə] corresponding to no underlying segment. Among the evidence for this analysis is that some suffixes have suppletive variants for monosyllabic and bisyllabic bases. Stems that appear monosyllabic and begin with
135-423: Is little allophonic variation in different consonantal contexts for the vowels. Instead, the phonemes can be realised by various different articulations in free variation . For example, the phoneme /ə/ can be pronounced [ɪ ~ e ~ ə ~ ʊ] in most contexts. However, it is required to be [ʊ] when phrase-initial before a labialized consonant (see below). The underlying syllable structure of Eastern/Central Arrernte
162-442: Is unusual in that there are only two contrastive vowel phonemes, /a/ and /ə/ . Two-vowel systems are very rare worldwide, but are also found in some Northwest Caucasian languages . It seems that the vowel system derives from an earlier one with more phonemes, but after the development of labialised consonants in the vicinity of round vowels, the vowels lost their roundedness/backness distinction, merging into just two phonemes. There
189-488: Is used when Anmatyerr people when hunting, when talking to the deaf, when somebody passes away and when talking to elders. The Northern Territory Department of Education has a program for teaching Indigenous culture and languages, underpinned by a plan entitled Keeping Indigenous Languages and Cultures Strong – A Plan for Teaching and Learning of Indigenous Languages and Cultures in the Northern Territory with
216-594: The Alice Springs Orogeny which peaked between 400 and 300 million years ago ( Devonian to Carboniferous Periods, both within the Paleozoic Era). It is not possible to say with absolute confidence that it is the very oldest river, but it is certainly one of the oldest rivers in the world. However, southern parts of its course must be much younger, because the areas where the Finke now flows near
243-515: The Living Archive of Aboriginal Languages . Projects are being run to revive dying dialects of the language, such as Southern Arrernte/Pertame. This description relates to Central or Eastern Arrernte. /ɰ ~ ʁ̞/ is described as velar [ ɰ ] by Breen & Dobson (2005) , and as uvular [ ʁ̞ ] by Henderson (2003) . Stops are unaspirated. Prenasalized stops are voiced throughout; prestopped nasals are voiceless during
270-554: The Shire of Diamantina and the Outback Communities Authority of South Australia. After several bridges on the now-closed Central Australia Railway were washed away by floods, rails were laid permanently on the bed of the river. In February 1953, after two days waiting at Finke township nearby, the river level was low enough for a steam-hauled train – The Ghan – to proceed slowly across. The Finke River
297-627: The Simpson Desert , rarely if ever reaching Lake Eyre . The source of the Finke River is in the Northern Territory's MacDonnell Ranges , which flows through central Australia. The name is first applied at the confluence of the Davenport and Ormiston Creeks, just north of Mount Zeil . From here, the river meanders for about 600 km (370 mi) to the western edge of the Simpson Desert in northern South Australia. It flows through
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#1732765547167324-553: The West MacDonnell and Finke Gorge National Parks . Usually the river is a string of waterholes, but it can become a raging torrent during rare flood events, fed by tropical rains upstream. In extreme instances, water from the Finke River flows into the Macumba River , which empties into Lake Eyre – a total distance from headwater streams of about 750 km (470 mi). Major tributaries include Ellery Creek, and
351-599: The Palmer and Hugh Rivers. Wangkangurru is an Australian Aboriginal language spoken on Wangkangurru country. It is closely related to Arabana language of South Australia. The Wangkangurru language region was traditionally in the South Australian- Queensland border region, taking in Birdsville and extending south towards Innamincka and Lake Eyre, including the local government areas of
378-680: The Superintendent of the Finke River Mission Station (Hermannsburg), appears to have been the first to have confirmed the Western Arrernte name of the river, which was actually "Lara Beinta", which means "Salt River". This translation is now widely accepted because the Finke contains certain waterholes that are constantly salty (one of which is named "Salt Hole" in English). The legend of its derivation from
405-556: The end of every word. Eastern and Central Arrernte has fairly free word order but tends towards SOV . It is generally ergative , but is accusative in its pronouns. Pronouns may be marked for duality and skin group . Pronouns decline with a nominative rather than ergative alignment: Body parts normally require non-possessive pronouns ( inalienable possession ), though younger speakers may use possessives in this case too (e.g. akaperte ayenge or akaperte atyinhe 'my head'). Larapinta, Northern Territory Larapinta
432-476: The oldest river in the world . Its age has been deduced from observation and analysis of various factors in the geology of the area. In places such as the James Range, the Finke flows through deeply incised meanders . Because meanders only form on flat plains, the river must be an antecedent stream , and have formed before the ranges were pushed up; this happened in a mountain building event referred to as
459-483: The one described in detail below. It is spoken in the Alice Springs area and taught in schools and universities, heard in media and used in local government. The second biggest dialect in the group is Alyawarre. Some of the other dialects are spoken by very few people, leading to efforts to revive their usage ; others are now completely extinct . "Aranda" is a simplified, Australian English approximation of
486-414: The others: All of the other dialects are either threatened or extinct: The Arrernte also have a highly developed Arrernte sign language , also known as Iltyeme-iltyeme. There is also an Anmatyerr sign language called iltyem-iltyem which is used by many Anmatyerr speakers to communicate non-verbally; the word iltja means 'hand, finger' and the term translates as 'signaling with hands'. Sign language
513-502: The same time. There are other eroded mountain ranges of equal or greater age to the MacDonnell Ranges, both in Australia and on other continents, so present rivers in those areas may have evolved from ancestral streams of equal or greater antiquity than the Finke. The 2023 six-part documentary series Larapinta looks at the people, stories, and science of the Finke River. Created by Arrernte and Luritja woman Talia Liddle,
540-593: The second stage of the plan running from 2018 to 2020. The Alice Springs Language Centre delivers language teaching at primary, middle and senior schools, offering Arrernte, Indonesian , Japanese , Spanish and Chinese . There are two courses teaching Arrernte at tertiary level: at the Batchelor Institute and at Charles Darwin University . There are books available in Arandic languages in
567-729: The series features historians, scientists, and traditional owners , who share their stories and knowledge. Songlines and stories from The Dreaming add to academic data about the river and surrounds. Cinematography is by Torstein Dyrting. The series aired on NITV from 19 August 2023, as well as being available on SBS On Demand . 24°08′39.55″S 132°52′20.76″E / 24.1443194°S 132.8724333°E / -24.1443194; 132.8724333 Arrernte language Arrernte or Aranda ( / ˈ ʌr ə n d ə / ; Eastern Arrernte pronunciation: [aɾəⁿɖə] ), or sometimes referred to as Upper Arrernte ( Upper Aranda ),
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#1732765547167594-466: The serpent is nonetheless held by the local people. The original spelling was a deliberate choice used for the main exit road west from Alice Springs , Larapinta Drive, as it leads to the Finke River at Hermannsburg ; the name was also used for an Alice Springs suburb and the Larapinta Trail . ( Larapinta, Queensland may have a different derivation.) The Finke River is frequently cited as
621-589: The southern edge of the Northern Territory, and further south, were under the sea during the Mesozoic Era, part of the Great Artesian Basin . The antiquity of the Finke River is not unique, but applies equally to other large mountain-sourced river systems in central Australia, such as the Todd and Hale Rivers and many others, because most of the central Australian mountain belts formed at around
648-403: The stop. These sounds arose as normal consonant clusters; Ladefoged states that they now occur initially, where consonant clusters are otherwise forbidden, due to historical loss of initial vowels; however, it has also been argued that such words start with a phonemic schwa, which may not be pronounced (see below). All dialects have at least /ə a/ . The vowel system of Eastern/Central Arrernte
675-446: The traditional pronunciation of the name of Arrernte [ˈarəɳ͡ɖa] . Glottolog defines the Arandic group of languages/dialects as comprising 5 Aranda (Arrernte) dialects, plus two distinct languages, Kaytetye (Koch, 2004) and Lower Southern (or just Lower) Aranda, an extinct language. Ethnologue defines 8 Arandic languages and classifies them slightly differently. Two dialects are more widely spoken than any of
702-405: Was named by John McDouall Stuart in 1860 after an Adelaide man, William Finke , who was one of the promoters of his expedition. The Aboriginal name for the river in parts of the Northern Territory, usually taken as Larapinta , may have been incorrectly translated by its first transcriber, the explorer Ernest Giles . In August 1872, while camped at Charlotte Waters Telegraph Station, Giles
729-570: Was the first "outsider" to record the Arrernte name for the Finke River. He incorrectly deduced from his conversations with Southern Arrernte that the name was derived from the gigantic mythological snake (known as the Rainbow Serpent ) which was believed to have created the river, and thought that larapinta meant snake in the local language. However in July 1876, Rev. Georg A. Heidenreich,
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