2022. Tradition and innovation: Using sign language in a Gurindji community in Northern Australia

Australian Journal of Linguistics ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cajl20 Tradition and innovation: Using sign language in a Gurindji community in Northern Australia Jennifer Green, Felicity Meakins & Cassandra Algy To cite this article: Jennifer Green, Felicity Meakins & Cassandra Algy (2022) Tradition and innovation: Using sign language in a Gurindji community in Northern Australia, Australian Journal of Linguistics, 42:2, 139-164, DOI: 10.1080/07268602.2022.2105137 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/07268602.2022.2105137 Published online: 16 Sep 2022. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 32 View related articles View Crossmark data Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=cajl20 AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF LINGUISTICS 2022, VOL. 42, NO. 2, 139–164 https://doi.org/10.1080/07268602.2022.2105137 RESEARCH ARTICLE Tradition and innovation: Using sign language in a Gurindji community in Northern Australia Jennifer Green , Felicity Meakins and Cassandra Algy The University of Melbourne, University of Queensland and University of Queensland ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY In the Gurindji community of Kalkaringi in Northern Australia the shared practices of everyday communication employed by both hearing and deaf members of the community include conventionalized manual actions from the lexicon of Indigenous sign as well as some recent visual practices derived from contact with both written English and with Auslan. We consider some dimensions of these multimodal practices, including kinship signs and signs for time-reference, and discuss several notable features in these domains. The first is gender-motivated use of the left and right sides of the body in several kinship signs. The second is the use of celestial anchoring in some signs for time. The use of spatially accurate pointing also contributes to the indexical richness of these communicative practices, as do some introduced semiotic resources, such as air-writing, and Auslan fingerspelling. As the first description of Gurindji sign, we establish a basis for further understandings of how tradition and innovation are incorporated into these shared practices. Accepted 23 February 2022 KEYWORDS Australian Indigenous sign languages; alternate sign languages; multimodality; language contact; kinship; time-reference; Gurindji; Auslan 1. Introduction Australian Indigenous sign languages hold a particular place in the diversity of the world’s many and varied sign languages.1 Sign is employed in particular cultural circumstances when speech is either impractical or in other ways inappropriate, and it is often used alongside other semiotic systems, including speech, gesture and drawing practices (Green, 2014; Green & Wilkins, 2014). In this article we address some dimensions of signed communication in Kalkaringi, a Gurindji community in the southern Victoria River District of the Northern Territory. As a first step we consider a corpus that consists of targeted elicitation sessions and filmed dyadic interactions that include both hearing and deaf members of the Kalkaringi community. We begin to tease out various influences which have contributed to the development of the sign language that is currently used there. We discuss the role of pointing in signed communication, and then look in detail at several culturally salient semantic domains – kinship and time-reference. We then outline several dimensions of innovation, where contact with Auslan and with English literacies has led to new practices in the visual modality. The results are considered against a backdrop of long-standing multilingualism in the CONTACT Jennifer Green jag@unimelb.edu.au 1 In the Australian context ‘Indigenous’ is a general term that covers both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. It is conventionally capitalized. See https://aiatsis.gov.au/explore/australias-first-peoples (accessed 3 May 2022). © 2022 The Australian Linguistic Society 140 J. GREEN ET AL. community, as well as contemporary and archival records of Australian Indigenous sign languages from the Victoria River District. Our approach is community-based and collaborative. One aim of the research is to develop community-directed outputs and resources to support knowledge of sign. Our consideration of the role of sign in the Kalkaringi community is framed within a comparative typology of multimodal “composite utterances” (Enfield, 2009; Hodge, 2014), with sign as one component in the overall “semiotic plurality of communication” (Ferrara & Hodge, 2018, p. 2). As a starting point, we assume that the shared communicative ecology includes not only sign but also the gestural strategies of the broader community (see de Vos & Nyst, 2018, p. 481; Kusters & Hou, 2020, p. 566). For hearing signers, co-speech signing is common, and for all, sign is orchestrated with other semiotic resources. In recent times some aspects of Auslan, the most widespread deaf community sign language used in Australia, have also entered the communicative mix. Little is known about the interaction between Australian Indigenous sign languages and recently introduced sign languages such as Auslan, and knowledge of how Auslan is used by deaf Indigenous Australians is still rudimentary (Hodge & Goswell, 2021). Similarly, there is little previous research that looks at the fine detail of shared communicative practices in Australian Indigenous communities where there are both deaf and hearing signers and where Australian Indigenous sign languages are known to exist (see Green et al., 2022; Power, 2013). The article is structured as follows: we first give a brief introduction to alternate sign languages (§2), and then provide an outline of the sociolinguistic and historical context of Gurindji multilingualism and language contact (§3). We then outline the methodologies used in our study of signing practices at Kalkaringi (§4) and make some general observations about local uses of Gurindji sign (§5). In the next sections we discuss the various roles of pointing in signed utterances (§6), kinship signs (§7) and then temporal signs (§8). Finally we look at some recent innovations, including air-writing (the tracing of orthographic symbols in the air) and Auslan fingerspelling (§9). In §10 we summarize our findings and point to questions for future research. 2. Alternate sign languages Sign languages such as those used in some Australian Indigenous communities have been termed ‘alternate’ sign languages (see Jepsen et al., 2015, p. 12; Kendon, 2013 [1988], p. 4).2 Alternate sign languages are “hearing-oriented” (Hodge & Goswell, 2021) and most often used by hearing people – they do not develop in response to the communicative needs of the deaf or deafblind (Pfau, 2012). They vary in terms of their cultural functions, their degree of conventionalization and their capacity to be used as a standalone form of communication independent of speech. Alternate sign languages have been documented in various diverse world contexts, either when silence is required or speaking is impractical. They are used in some monastic orders (Banham, 2015; Quay, 2015), in noisy workplace environments and when hunting (Mohr, 2015). In some societies sign may also serve as a lingua franca when there are many spoken languages that are not mutually intelligible. An example of this is the use of Plains Indian Sign Language (PISL) by Native Americans (Davis, 2010, 2015; Davis & McKay-Cody, 2010). 2 Alternate sign languages are referred to as secondary sign languages by some (e.g. Pfau, 2012, pp. 528–551). AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF LINGUISTICS 141 In Indigenous Australia sign is used when speech itself is culturally restricted. Signing is obligatory in some gender-restricted ceremonies; sign is used when hunting; when giving directions; and for communication between interlocutors who are visible to each other yet out of earshot. Sign is one of the resources drawn upon to mark kin-based respect (Green, 2019), and in some Australian Indigenous communities sign was used instead of speech during extended periods of mourning or ‘sorry business’ (see §5). There is variation across the country with respect to the degree of elaboration of these sign languages (Kendon, 2013[1988], p. 2). While distinctions cannot be sharply drawn, there are differences between those Australian Indigenous sign languages that have a large, codified vocabulary with signing used as an autonomous mode of discourse, and those where the sign inventory is small, and sign cannot be employed to communicate all ideas independent of other communicative systems. In some regions differences are partly due to gender and age-related factors – sign knowledge is not held evenly across the community or between the generations. Cultural practices, such as the use of sign during extended periods of bereavement, also impact on the development and elaboration of these sign systems (Kendon, 2013 [1988]). The picture is further complicated by the fact that there has been loss of sign expertise as a result of colonization, social and technological changes, and consequent disruption of traditional cultural practices (Green & Wilkins, 2014, p. 236). The extent to which Indigenous deaf people make use of these alternate sign languages in communities where knowledge of these sign languages remains strong is largely unexplored. Kendon (2013[1988]) suggested that, from scant observations available to him in the Warlpiri community of Yuendumu and elsewhere in Central Australia, “it looks as if deaf persons, in a community where an alternate sign language is in use, do not themselves use this language, but develop one of their own” (Kendon, 2013[1988], p. 407). He later remarked that it would be “hard to believe” that alternate sign had no influence on the signing practices of deaf community members (Kendon, 2015, p. 12). Others report that traditional sign languages are used by Indigenous deaf, at least in communities in north-east Arnhem Land where Yolŋu Sign Language (YSL) is found (Adone & Maypilama, 2013, 2015; Bauer, 2014; James et al., 2020; Maypilama & Adone, 2013). This provides a social context where a sign language that is ‘alternate’ for some may become the main means of communication and hence ‘primary’ for others (Adone & Maypilama, 2014, pp. 14–16; Bauer, 2014, p. 103; Davis, 2010, p. 186). As we will discuss in §5, this is the case in Kalkaringi, where traditional sign is one of the communicative resources that deaf community members draw on. 3. Historical perspectives on multilingualism and language contact in Gurindji country Gurindji sign language is used alongside a number of spoken languages in the main Gurindji communities of Kalkaringi and Daguragu, which are situated 8 km apart (see Figure 1). This form of communication is known locally as Takataka, borrowed from the Warlpiri term Rdakardaka ‘sign language’ (rdaka ‘hand’3), or in Kriol as Bingka tok ‘finger talk’ (bingka ‘hand’; tok ‘talk’). The main spoken language of the community is Gurindji Kriol, a mixed language which derives from Gurindji (Ngumpin-Yapa, Pama3 The Gurindji word for ‘hand’ wartan is not used to describe the sign language used there. Takataka is recognised as a Gurindji word (Meakins et al., 2013, p. 353). 142 J. GREEN ET AL. Figure 1. Location of the communities of Kalkaringi and Daguragu, and of some of the Indigenous spoken languages used in the region (cartography: Brenda Thornley). Nyungan) and Kriol (an English-based Creole language). In Kalkaringi there has been a shift away from Gurindji towards Gurindji Kriol (Meakins et al., 2019). Elderly Gurindji people continue to speak Gurindji, but code-switching with Kriol is the normal AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF LINGUISTICS 143 conversational practice and the source of the mixed language for subsequent generations (Meakins, 2011a). Kriol is spoken across much of Northern Australia and its evolution followed the expansion of the pastoral industry in the early 1900s. At the time a less developed Pidgin form of English, which later developed into Kriol, was the main language used by the colonists to communicate with Indigenous workers. From 1910 onwards Gurindji people began to work on Wave Hill Station, 20 km to the north-east of Kalkaringi, and on other surrounding cattle stations. In part this was a strategy to avoid contact with continuing frontier violence (Wavehill, 2016a, 2016b). There they lived and worked alongside other linguistic groups, such as the Ngarinyman, Bilinarra, Mudburra and Warlpiri. The networks established by new work regimes overlaid pre-existing ones that were a conduit for travel, trade, ceremonies and song, but they also created new needs and opportunities. Although many people were multilingual, Kriol became a lingua franca on Wave Hill Station, and sign may have had a similar function as a shared communicative practice used between groups that spoke diverse languages. In 1966 an event, now known as the Gurindji Walk-off, drew national attention to the poor living and working conditions on Wave Hill Station. Wages were being withheld from Indigenous workers by the manager. Discontent ran high, the workers walked off the job in protest, and the Gurindji established a new community at Daguragu. Various attempts over the years to convince the Gurindji to return to Wave Hill Station failed. Even though they were eventually offered wages equal to those of non-Indigenous stockmen the Gurindji stood their ground. Although their initial protest had taken the form of a workers’ strike, they continued to aspire to reclaim their traditional lands. In 1975, after years of persistent campaigning and with the help of the North Australian Workers Union and the Communist Party of Australia, the Gurindji were granted a lease for 3,236 km2 of land around Daguragu. The then Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam flew to Daguragu for the handback. His iconic action – pouring a handful of sand into the hands of a Gurindji leader – in itself became emblematic of decades of activism aimed at social justice and equity for Australia’s Indigenous peoples. In 1986 Gurindji people were granted inalienable freehold title to a portion of their land under the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 (Lingiari, 2016; Ward, 2016). Then, in September 2020, Gurindji, Mudburra and Warlpiri people were granted negotiating and travelling rights to other sections of their land through the Native Title Act 1993 (Cth). Nowadays the combined population of Kalkaringi and Daguragu is estimated to be around 700.4 Kalkaringi hosts a primary school, a shop, a social club, a health clinic, a ranger organization, the Gurindji Corporation, and the Karungkarni Art and Culture Aboriginal Corporation. 4. Methods and data Our sign corpus consists of approximately nine hours of video recorded by the research team on several fieldtrips to Kalkaringi between 2016 and 2018.5 In all there were 28 signers, with ages ranging from their late-20s to mid-80s. It is significant that there were seven male signers included in this group, and this reflects the cultural 4 5 See https://bushtel.nt.gov.au/profile/591, https://bushtel.nt.gov.au/profile/603 (accessed 3 May 2022). There is an additional hour of sign recorded in 1976 by Kim McKenzie and Patrick McConvell with Albert Crowson Lalka and Sambo Crowson, two Mudburra brothers from Montejinnie Station who were at Daguragu because the Montejinnie stock workers were on strike at the time (Gurindji-V0724_1_avc.mp4). 144 J. GREEN ET AL. circumstances of sign use in the region, where sign is used by both men and women. Almost two hours in the corpus comprises dyadic interactions between deaf and hearing members of the community, including video recordings of picture-prompt ‘director-matcher’ tasks. Although interactions between deaf interlocutors could have added an important dimension to our research, due to low numbers of deaf in the community and their gender- and kin-based norms of sociality where deaf are not necessarily preferred interlocutors for each other, recording such interactions was not a straightforward or appropriate option. In all recording sessions the researchers were present. All are hearing, several of them are speakers of local languages, and one is a member of the Kalkaringi community and hence closely related to all participants. The recordings include elicitation of individual signs and short phrases, unscripted conversations and responses to sessions based on director-matcher tasks that were first used to investigate case morphology in spoken languages (Meakins, 2011a, pp. 51–53) and later variation in Australian Indigenous sign languages (Green, 2018). The Gurindji are familiar with the format of these tasks, having participated in a number of other spoken-language projects using this semi-experimental method (Meakins, 2011a, 2011b). The images used were culturally appropriate, using local flora and fauna, and depicting well-known activities. The sessions were conducted in Gurindji and Gurindji Kriol and led by the third author. They were filmed in a range of community settings, including outside Karungkarni Art, where a spontaneous audience of engaged onlookers provided encouragement and occasionally joined in, demonstrating signs they knew. Picture prompts were presented on a portable artist’s portfolio case that folded out to form a stand-alone ‘A’ frame that was placed between the participants. We filmed with two cameras, one focusing on each interlocutor and with both sides of the picture board in view. The director and the matcher switched roles so that both completed the task for the entire set of images.6 We documented the spatial orientation of interlocuters, both in the semi-experimental tasks and more generally in the filming of signed examples. Figure 2 illustrates some of the picture stimuli used in these tasks. An example of using picture prompts to explore spatial reference in Gurindji signed utterances is discussed in §6. The data were segmented and annotated in Elan (Wittenburg et al., 2006) to the level of assigning sign ID-glosses (consistent labels for signs) in the corpus (Johnston, 2010, p. 119). Our ID-glosses usually comprise an English term and a Gurindji one, following methodologies outlined in Carew and Green (2015). This enables searches of the corpus using either language. Co-occurring speech (English, Gurindji and Gurindji Kriol) was also transcribed. From a total of over 4,000 single and multi-sign utterances we identified around 300 lexical signs.7 These cover a range of semantic domains. There are signs for family and relations, flora and fauna, weather, topography, time, and various artefacts of contemporary and traditional lifeworlds. Many of these lexical signs are polysemous and map onto multiple spoken-language terms. The kinship domain is one where this type of principled hyper-polysemy is most apparent (see §7 below). 6 Some laboratory-based paradigms for delivering these tasks obscure the responses of participants by delivering the stimuli on iPads – the director does not observe the matcher’s guess and the guess is not evaluated on the spot (see Macuch Silva et al., 2020). This method was not suitable in our field context. 7 Kendon’s recordings of Jingulu and Mudburra sign made at Elliott in 1984 provide a point of comparison. He recorded 353 ‘unitary’ Mudburra sign forms, and 287 Jingulu ones (Kendon, 2013[1988], p. 112). AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF LINGUISTICS 145 Figure 2. Examples of director-matcher task picture prompts used at Kalkaringi (Green, 2018). Some examples of the Kalkaringi sign recordings were published as a set of four sign language posters illustrating 80 common signs (Green et al., 2017).8 The images on these posters are linked to videos using QR-codes (for examples see Figures 5–7) and the videos were later edited into short films that were aired on ICTV (Indigenous Community Television).9 Additional examples of Gurindji sign can be found on iltyem-iltyem, a sign language website dedicated to the signing practices of Indigenous peoples from across Central and Northern Australia (Campbell et al., 2021[2013]).10 5. Contexts of sign use in Kalkaringi Despite the social and geographic disruptions outlined in §3 above, Gurindji people maintain their tradition of bimodal multilingualism.11 The practice of signing is an integral part of this, and, as we will demonstrate below, Gurindji sign repertoires exhibit a blend of both tradition and innovation. The functions of sign are generally in accord with what has been outlined for other Indigenous communities in Australia. For hearing Gurindji, sign may be used alongside spoken language, or as a replacement for speech in specific contexts. Many of these communicative contexts remain the same since ‘station times’ despite extensive cultural and linguistic shift. Station work itself engendered particular forms of communication, and this is evident in wellknown signs for introduced animals such as cattle and horses, and for the activities and accoutrements of day-to-day stock work – hats, boots, mustering and butchering.12 As is the case elsewhere in Central and Northern Australia, sign is employed when hunting (in the desert regions of Australia not because of mortal threats to people from wild animals, but rather because speaking could scare the animals off) and to communicate in situations when people are out of earshot, for example 8 See http://batchelorpress.com/node/373 (accessed 18 February 2020). The films won the 2019 ICTV Video Award for Best Language Film; see https://ictv.com.au/languages/gurindji (accessed 18 February 2020). 10 See https://iltyemiltyem.com/ (accessed 3 May 2022). 11 While the phenomenon of using both sign and speech is often referred to as ‘bimodal bilingualism’, we prefer to enlist the term ‘multi’ as many Gurindji people speak a number of spoken languages. 12 A multilingual conversation that occurred around the killing and butchering of a bullock in the 1970s led to the identification of Gurindji-Kriol code-switching as an unmarked communicative practice and the linguistic source of the mixed language, Gurindji Kriol (Meakins, 2011a). 9 146 J. GREEN ET AL. through car windows and across rivers while fishing or bathing. It provides a subdued, circumspect and culturally appropriate way of communicating in the presence of family members, such as mothers- and sons-in-law, or opposite sex siblings, with whom ordinary forms of communication are restricted or curtailed. Sign is also used to demonstrate respect in contexts of bereavement or ‘sorry business’ when particular relatives of the deceased observed bans of silence.13 Gurindji wangu ‘widows, widowers’ sign in order to metaphorically ‘keep the volume down’ by lessening their reliance on speech.14 The use of sign in these contexts sits alongside other cultural practices such as attending sorry business and the cutting of hair. Although there are as yet no detailed studies of the topic, our observations suggest that sign is also used extensively with young children. Even before they begin producing recognizable words they may be taught signs for close kin and commonly used sign utterances such as ‘What’s up?’, ‘Where are you going?’ and ‘Do you have any money?’ (Figure 3).15 Finally, Takataka is used between Gurindji hearing and deaf people as a primary means of communication. In Kalkaringi a small number of community members were born deaf and rely solely on communication in the visual modality. Although seasonal fluctuations in population and high mobility between remote communities and regional towns such as Katherine is a factor, the rate of deafness in Kalkaringi at the time of conducting this research was around 0.4%. This is similar to the reported situation in the community of Galiwin’ku in Arnhem Land, where an estimated 0.32% of the community are deaf and where Indigenous deaf people are an integral part of the community (Bauer, 2014, p. 49).16 Others have varying degrees of hearing loss resulting from otitis media (forms of inflammation and infection of the middle ear) or as a consequence of age-related hearing deterioration. As is the case for Indigenous populations globally (Coleman et al., 2018), for many years high rates of hearing loss have been reported for Indigenous Australians (Australian Indigenous HealthInfoNet, 2019, p. 32; Butcher, 2015; DeLacy et al., 2020; Howard, 2007). Gurindji deaf are integrated into the social and cultural life of Kalkaringi, no doubt facilitated by the widespread use of Takataka and associated practices in the visual modality shared between Gurindji deaf and hearing people. Gurindji deaf people live in hearing families, and have attended the local school at Kalkaringi alongside their close relatives and age-mates. As we will discuss in §9, some recent innovations to Takataka have occurred in this educational context. Some deaf are employed, including in the cattle industry, and they socialize with family and peers and maintain interpersonal relationships. It seems that Gurindji deaf do not seek each other out as conversation partners (see also Bauer, 2014, p. 101). Rather than hearing status, community-wide cultural practices, including the observance of kin-based interactional norms mentioned earlier 13 ‘Sorry business’ refers to a constellation of practices associated with bereavement, where appropriate kin will travel, sometimes over large distances, to express their condolences to kinsfolk. Often a special temporary ‘sorry camp’ is established at some distance from everyday residences. 14 Helma Bernard, personal communication to authors, 27 February 2020. 15 In this instance both interlocuters are hearing. It is not clear how to interpret the action of the left hand. It may be a stroke held from a previous sign in a multi-sign utterance. It could be an open palm gesture, in this case adding interrogative weight to the WHAT sign (Cooperrider et al., 2018). 16 These percentages are lower than estimates of rates of deafness in some rural signing communities elsewhere in the world. For example, Nyst estimated that deaf people constitute 2% of the population where Adamarobe Sign Language is used (Nyst, 2007, p. 25), compared to an estimated 2.2% of the population where Kata Kolok is used in the village of Bengkala in Bali (de Vos, 2012, p. 22). AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF LINGUISTICS 147 Figure 3. Meiye Roy (age 2–3yrs) signs ‘WHAT ?’ to her mother. Photo: Penny Smith (Wadrill et al., 2019, p. 39). (such as the avoidance of some opposite sex kin) may be a driving factor determining patterns of interaction. Further research is needed to fully understand the dynamics of such interactions and the extent to which mutual understanding is established between interlocuters with varying degrees of skill in signing. 6. Pointing and spatial reference in signed utterances Kalkaringi certainly constitutes what Nyst et al. (2012) have called a “gesture-prone” environment (p. 269). As well as 300 or so lexical signs, in our corpus of around 4,000 signed utterances there are more than 600 instances of pointing (the count would be higher if we considered non-manual actions such as lip-pointing). Some comparisons with other signed languages show that pointing is common: an estimated 16% of manual signs in the Balinese village sign language Kata Kolok are pointing signs, compared to 17% in ASL and 16% in Auslan (de Vos, 2012; 2015, p. 154), and 23% in British Sign Language (Fenlon et al., 2014, p. 198; see also Johnston, 2013; Nyst et al., 2012). In Kalkaringi pointing is prolific in both signed and spoken communication and it serves a wide array of functions. Discussions of geographic locations, both near enough to be visible and those further afield, are almost always accompanied by spatially accurate pointing. The use of such absolutely-oriented pointing to locate places and objects is reflected in the spoken language and can be viewed as a broader cultural practice beyond linguistic systems (Levinson, 2003; Levinson & Wilkins, 2006). As is the case in many other Australian languages, the Gurindji do not describe the position of objects in space using spoken-language terms such as ‘left’ and ‘right’. Rather an ‘absolute’ system based on cardinal directions and terms equivalent to ‘north’, ‘south’, ‘east’ and ‘west’ is used, even in descriptions of small-scale space. Statements such as ‘put the flour to the 148 J. GREEN ET AL. north of the sugar in the cupboard’ or ‘there’s a fly on your west shoulder’ would not be out of place. In spoken Gurindji this system is complex, with each term having thus far 31 documented inflected forms which encode sides of rivers, objects, motion and deixis. The system is still used, albeit in a reduced form by younger generations (Dunn et al., 2021; Meakins, 2011b; Meakins & Algy, 2016; Meakins et al., 2016). The director-matcher tasks used in the Kalkaringi sign project were designed to explore some aspects of spatial reference in signed utterances, with contrastive pictures showing a vehicle driving to different locations, such as neighbouring communities or larger regional towns. We routinely recorded the spatial orientation of the signers and then observed the strategies that directors and matchers employed in order to reach agreement about which stimulus card was in mutual focus. An example is illustrated in Figure 4. In this instance the card indicates a vehicle going to Elliott, which is almost exactly due east from Kalkaringi. These picture cards prompted a range of strategies on the part of the paired participants as they tried to select the right card and resolve some spatial conundrums inherent in the task. These strategies included spatially accurate pointing, the use of air-spelling to indicate place names (see §9), and the use of a body-centric relative frame of reference to situate the directions indicated in the card from the perspective of the interlocutor (in the example shown in Figure 4 the direction of travel in the frame of the picture card is to the right-hand side of both). We found that, even if the direction of vehicle travel was Figure 4. A bird’s eye view of a pair of director-matcher cards, illustrating the perspective of the Director and the Matcher, and a map showing the community of Kalkaringi in relation to Elliott. AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF LINGUISTICS 149 incorrectly oriented in the picture (as is the matcher’s view in Figure 4 where the vehicle is facing west), both hearing and deaf signers described the picture to their interlocutor using spatially correct pointing (in around 80% of the examples). As well as locating people and places, in Gurindji sign pronominal reference is achieved by pointing; pointing references parts of the body; and colours are indicated by pointing to relevant objects within close range of interlocuters. As we discuss below (§7), kinship signs are often formed by pointing to salient parts of the body, and Gurindji signers also use pointing for some aspects of time-reference (§8). 7. Signs for kin Kinship terminology, both spoken and signed, is a culturally salient core domain and in regions where Australian Indigenous sign languages are used, signs for kin are also found. This is certainly the case in Kalkaringi. Australia is renowned for its complex classificatory kinship systems, which in principle extend beyond immediate or biological kin (so, for example, there is no limit to the number of classificatory ‘brothers’, ‘sisters’, ‘mothers’ and ‘aunties’ a person has). There is no single Australian Indigenous kinship system, and they all differ from English ones in various ways.17 While some of the structural principles of these systems are shared across the continent, there are also some fundamental underlying differences. Examination of Australian Indigenous sign languages and the ways that kinship signs pattern with spoken kinship terms throws light on cross-modal relationships between speech and sign in these communities. As Kendon (2015) has emphasized, the relationship between Australian Indigenous sign languages and speech is one of the reasons that they are of theoretical interest (p. 15). Signs in the kinship domain illustrate this point – kin categories are merged in various principled ways and so some terminological distinctions made in speech are not found in sign. The number of distinct kin signs in Australian Indigenous sign languages is generally between six and ten (Green et al., 2018; see also Kendon, 2013[1988], pp. 330–336), whereas there are usually around 20 or so ‘core’ spoken-language kin terms. When it comes to Australian Indigenous sign languages Kendon observed that almost all kinship signs consist of “pointing to some part of the body” (Kendon, 2013[1988], p. 352). In many other sign languages of the world, kinship signs are similarly body-anchored (Wilkinson, 2009). In Australia this is in part related to the cultural practice of observing bodily sensations associated with particular kin, and to embodied practices of interaction – carrying, suckling, sitting side by side, and the converse – the avoidance of direct contact with particular kin. In the Gurindji corpus we have identified eight common kin signs and several variations that may reflect individual or regional differences. There are 21 spoken-language kin terms (Meakins et al., 2013). While many of the kin signs are the same as Mudburra signs (Green et al., 2019) and some other documented Australian Indigenous sign languages from Australia (Green et al., 2018; Kendon, 2013[1988]), there are some differences which we discuss below. The sign FATHER-NGAJI / AUNT - MUKURLA /MANS. CHILD- NGALAWINY is formed by touching the chin (Figure 5a). The handshape varies – it may be an index finger (characteristic of 17 For an overview of Australian Indigenous spoken-language terminologies and an introduction to some conceptual principles that underpin the kinship systems, see http://www.austkin.net/index.php (accessed 3 May 2022). 150 J. GREEN ET AL. Figure 5. Gurindji signs for kin: (a) FATHER - NGAJI/ AUNT- MUKURLA/MANS .CHILD - NGALAWINY (demonstrated by Georgina King); (b) MOTHER -NGAMAYI/JANKA- WOMAN (demonstrated by Jeffrey Barry); (c) MOTHERS. MOTHER - JAJU (demonstrated by Cassandra Algy) (from Green et al., 2017). older generations), a loosely cupped hand or a fist. Some signers enact a path downwards from the chin, as if outlining an imaginary beard. The sign MOTHER- NGAMAYI / JANKA -WOMAN (Figure 5b) is made by touching the chest with a fist (see Green et al., 2019, p. 400; Kendon, 2013[1988], p. 339). This polysemy of signs for mother and woman is typologically common in sign languages from other parts of the world (Wilkinson, 2009). There is some evidence of borrowing from other Australian Indigenous sign languages; for example, the distinctive ‘horns hand’ sign for mother is used by Kalkaringi residents who partly identify as Warlpiri or who have spent extensive time in Warlpiri communities. The Gurindji sign MOTHERS . MOTHER- JAJU is formed with a flat hand (or several fingers) touching the forehead (Figure 5c). A similar sign for mother’s mother is also found in Mudburra (Green et al., 2019, p. 401), in Arnhem Land (Green et al., 2020), in Alyawarr (Green et al., 2018, p. 10) and in Warlpiri (Kendon, 2013[1988], p. 338). The motivation for this association between kin in this category and the forehead remains unclear. The polysemous sign HUSBAND -NGUMPARNA / WIFE -MUNGKAJ/ SISTER . IN. LAW-NGAJALA/ FATHERS . MOTHER - NGAPUJU (Figure 6a) is formed by touching the back of the left hand with the palm of the right (or the other way around if the signer is left-hand dominant). This sign is widely used throughout the desert regions. The Gurindji sign for avoided kin, such as mothers- or sons-in-law, is also common (Figure 6b). It is articulated by a flat hand that moves close to, or touches, the side of the face, signifying the action of turning away or averting the eyes to avoid direct contact with such kin. Some variation is evident in the Gurindji signs for siblings and cross-cousins. In many Australian languages there is a terminological distinction between cross-cousins, the children of a person’s father’s sisters and mother’s brothers, and parallel cousins, who are the children of a person’s father’s brothers and mother’s sisters and referred to as siblings. The sign SISTER -KAPUKU (Figure 7a) articulates with the nose, and to our knowledge this kin sign is not attested in other Australian Indigenous sign languages.18 The sign BROTHER- PAPA 18 The only other reported Australian Indigenous sign language kin sign that articulates to the nose is a Ngatajara [Ngaatjatjarra] sign for FATHER (Kendon, 2013[1988], p. 348). We note that in Ngaatjatjarra, pointing to the nose indicates the 1st person pronoun. AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF LINGUISTICS 151 Figure 6. Gurindji signs for kin: (a) HUSBAND - NGUMPARNA /WIFE - MUNGKAJ /SISTER .IN.LAW- NGAJALA /FATHERS . MOTHER - NGAPUJU (demonstrated by Nigel Bernard); (b) MOTHER . IN . LAW , SON . IN . LAW - MALI (demonstrated by Tara Long) (from Green et al., 2017). Figure 7. Gurindji signs for kin: (a) SISTER- KAPUKU (demonstrated by Junior King); (b) BROTHER- PAPA ; (c) (both demonstrated by Tara Long) (from Green et al., 2017). CROSS . COUSIN - PAKURTU (Figure 7b) articulates with either shoulder (although in our data predominately the left). For some signers there is a contrast between signs for siblings and those for cross-cousins (Figure 7c). Others use the same sign for male cross-cousins and brothers (formed on the shoulder), and the same sign for female cross-cousins and sisters (touching the nose). The most significant variation in signs for siblings is found with older signers who employ the right and left sides of the body to distinguish between brothers and sisters. The calf of the right leg is the place of articulation for the sign for brother, and the calf of the left leg is used for sister.19 Distinguishing the gender of kin by signing to either the right- or left-hand sides of the body is not unknown in other Australian communities. Kendon reports that in Warlpiri and in Mudburra sign a distinction is sometimes made between the gender of younger siblings – using the right shoulder for younger brothers 19 Archival session: SIGN-20180607-03. 152 J. GREEN ET AL. Figure 8. Violet Wadrill (with Topsy Dodd Ngarnjal) demonstrates the coverb juluj ‘carry under arm’. Image source: Archival session SIGN-20180607-02 (Sign20180607-03.mov). and left for younger sisters (Kendon, 2013[1988], pp. 333, 341). In Wurlaki/Djinang (Arnhem Land, Australia) some signs are similarly body-sided: the right side is used when referring to males, and the left for females (Green et al., 2020).20 The reasons why the right and left sides of the body are employed in this way are not clear. However, the use of the body in Gurindji sign is aligned with spoken-language Gurindji terminologies that lexicalize the sides of the body on the basis of embodied actions typically associated with men and women (these terms only became apparent to the research team during the course of research on sign language). In spoken Gurindji warrara-wu-ny ‘brandish.spear-DAT-NMLZ ’ refers to the right side of the body, and juluj-ku-ny ‘carry.under.arm-DAT-NMLZ’ (e.g. coolamon, child) to the left side (see Figure 8).21 These terms are distinct from words referring to handedness, for example jutu(mparra) ‘righthanded’ and jampu(karra) ‘left-handed’ (Meakins et al., 2013, pp. 79, 122), which do not extend to other parts of the body or project more abstractly to position objects in space.22 The majority of Gurindji kin signs bear no resemblance to Auslan ones. Of 29 Auslan kin signs, 21 are produced with an initialized handshape, representing the first orthographic letter of the kin term in written English (Wilkinson, 2009, p. 473). One of the few Auslan kin signs that is not produced in this way is a plausible candidate for an example of the influence of Auslan on Gurindji sign. We have already described how the Gurindji sign SISTER appears to be an outlier and is distinguished from SISTER signs used by cultural and geographic neighbours of the Gurindji – the Mudburra, Jingulu and Warlpiri. Yet the Gurindji sign SISTER (Figure 7a) shares a place of articulation with the Auslan sign SISTER , which is formed by a hooked index finger tapping the nose (Wilkinson, 2009, 20 In Balgo the sides of the body are also reported to be gendered (male = right, female = left). Tom Ennever, personal communication to Felicity Meakins, 30 March 2020. Abbreviations: DAT dative; NMLZ nominalizer. 22 Another word for ‘right-handed’ is jutungarrka and other terms for ‘left-handed’ are wartiwarti, wirlkirri and jirrpintikarra. Note that jutu also means ‘correct, straight’ (Meakins et al., 2013, p. 122). 21 AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF LINGUISTICS 153 p. 471).23 Another possible explanation for the unusual place of articulation for this Gurindji kin sign is the phonological similarity between the words jitja ‘sister’ in Kriol, and jitji ‘nose’ in Gurindji. Kendon noticed some similar examples where the sounds of spoken language seem to have an influence on sign forms (Kendon, 2013[1988], p.195). Another possible Auslan influence on Gurindji sign is seen in the sign FATHER (Figure 5a). The Gurindji sign FATHER has the same form as the Auslan sign MAN, which is produced with a closed fist moving down from the chin to neutral space (Wilkinson, 2009, pp. 477–478).24 Associations between males (and some patrilineal kin such as fathers and father’s sisters) and the chin or beard are widespread. In Ngaatjatjarra the sign MAN may be produced by contacting the chin with an index finger, by grasping the chin as if pulling a beard, or by tapping the chin with the side of the fist (Green et al., 2018, p. 96). The Auslan sign BOY is also formed by either pointing to or tapping the chin (Wilkinson, 2009, p. 488).25 While such similarities in form/function could be the result of contact between Australian Indigenous sign languages and Auslan, a more likely hypothesis is that they are instances of parallel invention, where sign forms share a similar iconic base. They reflect logical design choices for sign, “motivated by universal human and cultural-specific traits” (Wilkinson, 2009, p. ix). 8. Signs for time Apart from using spatially accurate pointing, another way that Gurindji people demonstrate the way that they are “anchored to the physical environment” (Cooperrider & Núñez, 2009, p. 200) is in the domain of time. This is evident both in signs for deictic time (such as past, present and future), and in time-of-day signs (midday, 2 o’clock etc.) The literature on time-reference strategies in sign and gesture in other parts of the world is extensive. Mapping the flow of time or relating times of day to the position and path of the sun is one common time-reference strategy found the world over. For example, signers of Adamorobe Sign Language from Ghana employ an arced path that references the trajectory of the sun and the moon (Nyst, 2007, p. 110). Variation in the spatial anchoring of actions in the domain of time is also found in studies of gesture. Floyd (2016) describes how speakers of Nheengatú, an Indigenous language of the Brazilian Amazon, make temporal reference on a diurnal scale by pointing upwards according to an absolutely-oriented east-to-west arc, paralleling the path of the sun (p. 33). In Kata Kolok absolute pointing signs are deployed for temporal reference (de Vos, 2012, pp. 214– 217; 2015, pp. 157, 158). Others demonstrate how the body may represent the deictic centre for actions relating to time-reference. In the Brazilian sign language Urubu Ka’apor the front of the signer is employed to refer to the future and the back to the past (Le Guen, 2019, pp. 376, 377). The reverse happens in the gestures of Aymara speakers, a language spoken in the Andes – the space behind the speaker is used for the future, and the space in front for the past (Núñez & Sweetser, 2006). Miyakubo Sign Language, used on Ōshima Island in the western Inland Sea of Japan, uniquely combines a celestial timeline linked to the absolute 23 See https://auslan.org.au/dictionary/words/sister-1.html (accessed 4 May 2022). See https://auslan.org.au/dictionary/words/man-1.html (accessed 4 May 2022). 25 See https://auslan.org.au/dictionary/words/boy-1.html (accessed 4 May 2022). 24 154 J. GREEN ET AL. location of the sun, with a deictic timeline that places the past at the signer’s right, but does not include a spatial representation of the future (see also Brookes 2004, pp. 191, 224; Le Guen, 2012; Walker & Cooperrider, 2016; Yano & Matsuoka, 2018). In Australia there are some previous descriptions of time-reference, both in gesture and in sign. In Australian Indigenous sign languages there are no signed equivalents for spokenlanguage verb inflections for tense and temporal framing of utterances is given by signs such as TODAY, YESTERDAY and TOMORROW (see Kendon, 2013[1988], pp. 239, 240). Indicating the time of day by pointing towards the position of the sun is a widespread practice (see Green et al., 2019, p. 434). For example, in YSL and in the Kimberley region of Western Australia an index finger point upwards represents ‘midday’ (James et al., 2020, p. 163).26 A Jingulu sign meaning ‘all day’ is formed by an extended arm that describes an arc “reminiscent of the sun’s passage through the sky during the day” and other North Central Desert (NCD) signs for ‘morning’ and ‘afternoon’ frequently involve pointing in the direction of the rising or setting sun (Kendon, 1986–1997). In YSL signs glossed as ‘yesterday’, ‘very long ago’, ‘before’, as well as ‘Ancestral’ or ‘Creation’ time are formed with either a flat hand or an index finger that traces a curved arc backwards over the signer’s shoulder (James et al., 2020, pp. 160–162). In an experimental study using a spatial task, Boroditsky and Gaby (2010) found that speakers of Kuuk Thaayorre lay out time as proceeding from east to west, and conclude that this is related to the trajectory of the sun (p. 4). Gaby (2012) also reports that a point to the east may refer to the distant past (p. 3). In another study, Montredon and Ellis (2014) describe gestures relating to time and space in the Ngaanyatjarra community of Tjukurla in Western Australia. The Gurindji system draws on several of the time-reference strategies outlined above. The signs TOMORROW and YESTERDAY are both anchored to the trajectory of the sun. TOMORROW is signed with an arced movement from east to west, as if fast forwarding through the day (Figure 9a). YESTERDAY is signed with similar arc sweeping from west to east, a ‘day in reverse’ (Figure 9b). Depending on the orientation of the signer, these symmetrical east–west or west–east arcs may be articulated laterally across the body, towards the front of the body (Figure 9a) or back over the shoulder (as in Figure 9b), and so the absolute spatial anchoring of the action is preserved (see Floyd, 2016, p. 43; Meakins & McConvell, 2021). This anchoring of deictic time signs such as TOMORROW and YESTERDAY to cardinal directions appears to be typologically rare. It is also of note that these signs are mainly used by younger Gurindji and not by the senior generations, who may indicate ‘tomorrow’ by signing SLEEP then ONE. To form the sign TODAY / NOW/ HERE an index finger points to the ground at the feet of the signer, reflecting the deictic here/now as an anchor point (Figure 10). This sign is found in some other Australian Indigenous sign languages, for example in Ngaanyatjarra, and in YSL (Maypilama et al., 2012, p. 51). Another sign TODAY, used by signers from several language groups in the NCD and formed with an ‘X’ hand (with the tip of the index finger pressed onto the tip of the thumb) in neutral signing space, is known and used by some at Kalkaringi. A sign TIME. WATCH (Figure 11) is based on the action of pointing to a real or imaginary location of a wristwatch. A similar sign is found in Auslan,27 in Mudburra (Green et al., 26 27 Demonstrated by Clifton Bieundurry; see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLwf2b4kWKo (accessed 3 May 2022). See http://www.auslan.org.au/dictionary/words/time-1.html (accessed 3 May 2022). AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF LINGUISTICS 155 Figure 9. Cassandra Algy demonstrates the signs (a) TOMORROW and (b) YESTERDAY . Image source: Archival session SIGN20170522-01 (Sign20170522-02.mov; 00:01:05.310-00:01:30.503). Figure 10. TODAY/NOW/ HERE (demonstrated by Jeffrey Barry). Image source: Archival session SIGN20170522-06 (Sign20170522-10.mov; 00:07:36.530). 156 J. GREEN ET AL. Figure 11. TIME .WATCH (demonstrated by Rosemary Johnson). Image source: Archival session SIGN20180607-01 (Sign20180607-02.mov; 00:20:06.230). 2019, p. 433), and in YSL (Maypilama et al., 2012, p. 52). A common signed utterance consists of this sign followed by the interrogative sign WHAT (see Figure 3). Another strategy used at Kalkaringi to refer to specific times of the day is to produce a number sign followed by a point skywards, for example the numeral TWO oriented towards the place in sky where the sun would be at 2 o’clock. A sign LONG . AGO, articulated by snapping the thumb and middle finger, is known by some at Kalkaringi. This sign is widespread in parts of Central and Northern Australia, found in Mudburra (Green et al., 2019, p. 434), Warlpiri, Kaytetye, Anmatyerr, Warumungu and Warlmanpa (Kendon, 1986–1997). Kendon documented the fingersnap in seven of the NCD languages, and notes that signs that employ the fingersnap denote extremes of time and space, or the sudden onset or completion of something (Kendon, 2013 [1988], p. 149). It is possible that this sign LONG. AGO may have come into Gurindji signing practices from Mudburra workers on Wave Hill Station or from contact with Warlpiri and other groups. 9. New orthographies – air-writing and fingerspelling We turn finally to a brief discussion of some examples of recent innovations to the multimodal practices of deaf and hearing at Kalkaringi. English orthographic conventions have AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF LINGUISTICS 157 entered the semiotic repertoires of younger generations of deaf and hearing at Kalkaringi via two main channels – the first based on written forms of English, and the second more indirectly via Auslan fingerspelling. Although work on the cattle stations may have brought with it some introduced symbolic and numeric conventions (see Power, 2013, pp. 266–267), formal English literacy did not come to the Victoria River District until the early 1960s with the establishment of a primary school at the Welfare Settlement at the location of present-day Kalkaringi (Ward, 2016). Although Gurindji is now a written language, it seems that Gurindji vernacular orthographic conventions are not used in the ways we describe below. In the practice of air-writing, orthographic symbols are traced in the air, on the signer’s own body – typically their arm or leg, or on their interlocutor’s body to signify the names of people and places. They are like ephemeral representations of locally known acronyms. The letters are usually traced on the vertical plane, from left to right and oriented from the perspective of the signer, meaning that the interlocutor will see them backwards. The elevation and visibility of air-writing may lend itself to pairings with spatially accurate pointing, or combinations with an interrogative sign. In our corpus only the first, or the first and second letters of a word are drawn. In a close community where there is much shared ‘common ground’ it seems that the first few letters of a word or the initials of several words (such as personal names or place names) are sufficient to achieve reference. Some examples of air-writing include: A- S (Alice Springs); T- S (Top Springs); S -H (shop) and R- R (Rosita Rose). Use of this technique by deaf and hearing people to denote place names, or to signify the initials of an individual’s first and last names is also reported in other Australian Indigenous communities (see Ellis et al., 2019, pp. 105–106; Green et al., 2018, p. 28). Examples (1) and (2) show typical signed utterances that were offered as clues in the director-matcher picture task such as that illustrated above (see Figure 4). Both examples include air-writing, the lexical sign CAR and spatially accurate pointing. (1) Air write: E CAR Point:EAST The car is going east to Elliott. (2) Air write: D CAR Point:NORTH The car is going north to Darwin. Air-writing may be combined with the mouthing of letters or of complete words. There is variation as to whether or not vocal gestures (in the case of deaf signers) or spokenlanguage words (hearing signers) accompany the production of air-writing but our initial observations suggest that hearing signers are more inclined to use mouthings than deaf signers, an observation also made by Bauer of YSL (Bauer, 2014, p. 157). As is the case in Kalkaringi, a similar practice, which Forman (2003) calls “aerial spelling”, has been observed amongst senior signers of New Zealand Sign Language. Words are traced in the air using the forefinger, and in some contexts only the first letter of a word is necessary to act as a signifier of the whole word. Aerial spelling is used when a sign does not exist or is not known, or “when lip reading fails” (Forman, 2003, p. 93). Fingerspelling is another resource that provides a “cross-modal bridge” (Arnaud, 2019, p. 566) between Auslan and Gurindji sign. This innovation seems to have occurred quite recently, as a focused and deliberate repertoire-building exercise centred around two deaf Gurindji children who were born in the late 1980s and attended the Kalkaringi school in the 1990s. The mothers sat with the children in class, helping them with their 158 J. GREEN ET AL. schoolwork. In the process, one of the mothers recalls how she learnt Auslan fingerspelling from the telephone directory, back in the day when such paper resources were commonplace. As she explained [while demonstrating Auslan fingerspelling], “A, B, C, D, E, F, G … I was lucky to find that phone book!”.28 The mother then went on to teach the classmates of her deaf child. As is the case in the practice of air-writing described above, examples in our corpus include only the finger spelt first letter for the referent, for example C (club), W (water) and S (salt). On occasion a signed utterance may combine conventionalized Gurindji signs with fingerspelling, for example the sign SUGAR followed by finger spelt ‘T’ (tea) to denote ‘tea and sugar’. While further studies of spontaneous interaction are needed to determine how widespread knowledge and use of fingerspelling is, our investigations show that it is known by deaf and at least some hearing people at Kalkaringi. Little is known about the adoption of Auslan fingerspelling in other Indigenous communities in Australia. One example is reported from far north Queensland, where the sign ABORIGINAL is made by signing FIRST and then fingerspelling the letter A (Australian) (O’Reilly, 2006, p. 14). Bauer suggests that such practices are “atypical” of village and Indigenous sign languages and that these “contact-induced” practices are evidence of the increasing influence of Auslan (Bauer, 2014, p. 26). 10. Conclusions In this article we have sketched out the historical context that underpins Gurindji sign, a set of multimodal practices that includes conventionalized signs, pointing and other gestural practices, and recent innovations derived from contact with both written English and with Auslan. We have shown how there is a community of shared sign knowledge and practice in Kalkaringi, regardless of hearing status. This study adds to what little is known about the communicative ecologies of Indigenous Australia where there is a long-standing tradition of signing in communities that include both deaf and hearing people. This is the first description of Gurindji sign, and it extends what is known about Australian Indigenous sign languages beyond the North Central Desert region that Kendon investigated in detail over three decades ago. In the Gurindji context sign is part of a shared and “jointly created communicative toolkit” (Zeshan, 2015, p. 213). New resources – such as the Auslan fingerspelling found in a telephone book by the mother of a deaf child – are borrowed and incorporated into the local communicative ecologies as the need arises. The dynamic needs of everyday communication drive innovation, and “are shaped by the task at hand” (Green, 2017). In communities like Kalkaringi these tasks vary according to age, gender, education and employment opportunities, mobility between remote communities and larger regional centres, and many other individual factors. We have shown how the changing social contexts of Gurindji people – their early contact histories, their penchant for multilingualism and the presence of a minority of deaf in the community – underly current practices. We have also drawn attention to some inter-generational differences in sign, particularly in the domains of kinship and time-reference, and to the typologically rare anchoring of some deictic time signs to cardinal directions. 28 Archival session: SIGN-20180607-01 (Sign20180607-01.mov). AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF LINGUISTICS 159 There is some evidence of the borrowing of Auslan signs into Gurindji repertoires, as well as the incorporation of the literacy-based practices of fingerspelling and air-writing. Some are alert to dangers inherent in contact between large-scale signed languages and smaller ones (see Davis, 2015, p. 911; de Vos & Zeshan, 2012, p. 5). However, in Kalkaringi innovation in sign seems to parallel practices of multilingualism and community ideologies about language where there is little or no prohibition on mixing and blending existing practices with new ones. This apparent acceptance of innovation by no means detracts from the need to respect and maintain the diversity of Australia’s Indigenous sign languages, or what Saxton-Barney has termed ‘cultural signs’ and thus support a multiplicity of communicative choices, both in resource development and in the delivery of services to people with differing needs (Saxton-Barney, 2010, p. 13; see also Braithwaite, 2019). The study of Australian Indigenous sign languages provides a window on forms of multimodal communication that are found in small communities such as Kalkaringi where there are close kinship ties, and substantial shared cultural and historical common ground. Considering the ways that Australian Indigenous sign languages are used entails a broadening of focus beyond a widely held assumption that the natural languages of deaf people and deaf communities are the only exemplars of sign languages. It contributes an important piece to the worldwide picture of how sign languages vary, how they change, and how the human genius for communication enlists useful resources to fulfil the changing needs of interlocutors in rapidly changing socio-cultural environments. Studies of Australian Indigenous sign languages also highlight the need for more nuanced ways to talk about typological classifications of sign languages which account for various factors, including hearing status, the size of communities and levels of signing fluency (Braithwaite, 2020, pp. 182, 183). There are many questions that deserve further exploration. For example, further research is needed to understand which elements of these sign languages are most likely to be shared between communities and across generations, and which domains of sign use are most susceptible to loss, change or innovation. Outlining the multimodal ecologies of sign, gesture and speech in the community of Kalkaringi establishes a baseline for further explorations of the dynamics of change in the signing practices of other Australian Indigenous communities. It also shows how innovations are incorporated into traditions of signed communication that are highly valued and of great time-depth and antiquity. Acknowledgements We acknowledge and thank the many speakers and signers at Kalkaringi with whom we have worked on the sign project, and in particular Cedrina Algy, Jeffrey Barry, Junior Berd, Helma Bernard, Nigel Bernard, Lucy Dodd, Gladys Farquharson, Ros Farquharson, Gus George, Karen Hector, Tara Long, Georgina King, Norman Oscar, Antara Patrick, Rosita Rose, Jordan Smiler, Lisa Smiler, Samantha Smiler and Joanne Stevens. We also thank our cultural advisors Violet Wadrill, Topsy Dodd, Ronnie Wavehill and Kathleen Sambo. We thank the Karungkarni Art and Culture Aboriginal Corporation, and in particular the manager, Penny Smith. Jessica Bell, Gabrielle Hodge, Eleanor Jorgensen, Lauren Reed and Wanyima Wighton assisted with the annotation of the corpus in Elan. We especially thank Gabrielle Hodge for her insightful comments on an early version of this article, and two anonymous reviewers for their comments on the final draft. This research has been approved by the University of Melbourne Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC no: 1646778.1). 160 J. GREEN ET AL. Data availability statement The data that support the findings of this study are archived at AIATSIS (https://aiatsis.gov.au/ collection/search-collection) and are available subject to individual access conditions. Relevant archival session names are indicated in the article. Examples of Gurindji sign cited in this article can also be found at https://iltyemiltyem.com/. Disclosure statement No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. Funding This research has been supported by an ARC (Australian Research Council) Fellowship (DE160100873), an ILA (Indigenous Languages and Arts) grant and by the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language (CoEDL) (CE140100041). Notes on contributors Jennifer Green is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the School of Languages and Linguistics at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Her research interests include Australian Indigenous languages, verbal arts, gesture and multimodality, lexicography, field methods, archiving, and research ethics. For over 40 years she has collaborated with Indigenous peoples in Central and Northern Australia on projects documenting spoken and signed languages, cultural history, and visual arts. She has published widely on these topics. Felicity Meakins is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Queensland and a CI in the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language. She is a field linguist who specializes in the documentation of Australian Indigenous languages in Northern Australia. She has worked as a community linguist as well as an academic over the past 20 years, facilitating language revitalization programmes, consulting on Native Title claims and conducting research into Indigenous languages. She has compiled a number of dictionaries and grammars of traditional Indigenous languages and has written numerous papers on language change in Australia. Cassandra Algy is a Gurindji woman and a Research Assistant at the University of Queensland who has worked on a number of Gurindji and Gurindji Kriol research projects over the last 15 years, including the Aboriginal Child Language (ACLA) project, the Gurindji History project, the Gurindji sign language project, the Gurindji songs project and the Gurindji ethnobiology poster project. Algy also works at Karungkarni Art and Culture Aboriginal Corporation at Kalkaringi as an art worker. ORCID Jennifer Green http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9509-1547 Felicity Meakins http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4487-4351 References Adone, D., & Maypilama, E. L. (2013). A grammar sketch of Yolŋu Sign Language. Charles Darwin University. Adone, D., & Maypilama, E. L. (2014). Bimodal bilingualism in Arnhem Land. Australian Aboriginal Studies, 1(2), 101–106. AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF LINGUISTICS 161 Adone, D., & Maypilama, E. L. (2015). The sociolinguistics of alternate sign languages of Arnhem Land. 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