Jiwarli (also spelt Djiwarli, Tjiwarli) is an Australian Aboriginal language formerly spoken in Western Australia. It is a variety of the Mantharta language of the large Pama–Nyungan family.
The last native speaker of Jiwarli, Jack Butler, died in April 1986. Prof Peter K. Austin (Linguistics Department, SOAS) collected all the available material on Jiwarli during fieldwork with Jack Butler 1978-1985. He has published a volume of texts on the language and a bilingual dictionary (Jiwarli-English with English-Jiwarli finderlist); both are currently out of print.
Famous quotes containing the word dialect:
“The eyes of men converse as much as their tongues, with the advantage that the ocular dialect needs no dictionary, but is understood all the world over.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)