Scientists have discovered a language that is spoken in northern Australia which contains grammatical innovations and a combination of elements from other languages.
(1888PressRelease) July 12, 2013 - Scientists at the department of linguistics at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor have discovered a language called Light Warlpiri in Northern Australia. This newly discovered language that is spoken in a remote indigenous community in northern Australia contains rare grammatical innovations and a unique combination of elements from other languages.
Light Warlpiri is known as a mixed language because it is composed of a unique combination of elements from typologically dissimilar languages including standard Australian English, Warlpiri, a Pama-Nyungan language, Kriol an English-lexifier creole and Australian Aboriginal English.
The Light Warlpiri language is spoken by approximately 300 people in a remote desert community about 650 km from Katherine a town located in Australia's Northern Territory.
Usually mixed languages consist of a combination of elements from two languages, such as the grammar from one language and the lexis from another, however, Light Warlpiri takes the nominal and verbal systems from different languages, which is very uncommon. Nouns are generally from Warlpiri or standard Australian English and the nominal morphology is taken from Warlpiri. Verbs and verbal inflections are many from Kriol, within the verbal auxiliary system, English and Kriol modal forms are reanalysed and result in new forms and structures. One distinction of Light Warlpiri is a word form that refers to both the presents and past but not the future; in English 'I'm' refers to 'I' in the present tense, however in Light Warlpiri a new form has been created; 'yu-m' which means 'you' in the present and past, but not the future.
Carmel O'Shannessy a professor in the department of linguistics and the University of Michigan discovered Light Warlpiri when she started working in a school in the northern territory of Australia which is where traditional Warlpiri is taught to children; however O'Shannessy noticed that some students would switch between several languages.
O'Shannessy comments that "The striking thing about Light Warlpiri is that most of the verbs come from English or Kriol, but most of the other grammatical elements in the sentence come from Warlpiri,"
In English, the order of words in a sentence generally indicates the grammatical relationship between the various entities. For example, in the sentence "Mary saw Jim," it is understood that Mary is the one doing the seeing, because her name precedes the verb.
In the Warlpiri language, however, words can be placed in any order, and grammatical interpretations are based on suffixes that are attached to the nouns" O'Shannessy explained.
"That structure doesn't exist in any of the languages that this new code came from, which is one of the reasons we see this as a separate linguistic system, even though it comes from other languages that already exist," she explained.
It is believed that Light Warlpiri emerged in the 1970s and 1980s due to an expansion of the English Warlpiri code switching patters; code switching is used by linguists, which means the switching between languages.
Scientists have discovered a language that is spoken in northern Australia which contains grammatical innovations and a combination of elements from other languages. 
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