Everything about Anangu totally explained
Anangu, more accurately "Aṉaŋu" or "Arnangu" (pronounced mid-way between "Arn Ang Goo" and "An An Ooo", with the stress on the first syllable; ) is a word found in a number of eastern varieties of the
Western Desert Language (WDL), an
Australian Aboriginal language of the
Pama-Nyungan family, spoken in the desert regions of western and central
Australia. Before the arrival of non-Aboriginal people in Central Australia the core meaning of
anangu was probably 'human being, person'. Now however it's used to mean 'Aboriginal human being, person' and is rarely applied to non-Aboriginal people. As a Western Desert Language word for '(Aboriginal) person', and given that other Aboriginal languages have their own words for '(Aboriginal) person' the word
anangu has come to be very closely associated with the WDL speaking people who use it to the extent that it's now commonly used to refer to them, mainly by non-Aboriginal people but also by the speakers themselves. Used in this way it seems never to be used to refer to any traditional grouping but rather to any collection of WDL people. It may also be used to refer to other Aboriginal people, especially where the speaker is uncertain who they are.
The correct term for "black person" in Pitjantjatjara is aṉangu maru, literally "dark/black person".
Anangu also has the meaning 'human body' and may be used to refer specifically to the physical body, or to a dead body.
Distribution and spelling
The following table shows the main WDL dialects in which it's used (left column) along with the word spelled according to the orthography of that dialect (right column).
The reasons for the spelling variations are: some WDL dialects don't allow vowel-initial words—in these varieties the word begins with
y; some orthographies use underlining (for example ṉ) to indicate a
retroflex consonant, while others use a
digraph (for example
rn). Pitjantjatjara seems to be the best-known source for the word, but the underlining of the consonant is often ignored (or not understood) by English speakers, and is difficult to type, so the word is very commonly seen as
anangu. It is probably best in this article to continue using the word in the most familiar form (which is also the article title) despite the fact that it's an incorrect spelling.
Usage
On occasion this word is used to refer to white people and non-natives. In some communities, when a white person is accepted in to their community, one of the ways that they know that they're accepted is to be referred to as an Anangu (a person).
Equivalents in other languages/dialects
Other Western Desert Language dialects have different words with a similar meaning and range of uses. In the far west of the WDL (for example amongst
Manyjilyjarra,
Kartujarra,
Putijarra and
Warnman) the word
martu is used, and in the central Western Desert (for example amongst the western
Pintupi) the word
purntu, although this seems to be rarely used now.
A few of the equivalent terms used by some Aboriginal groups in other regions of Australia are
Koori,
Noongar,
Nunga,
Murri.
Communities with a large WDL-speaking population
» See also WARU community directory
Further Information
Get more info on 'Anangu'.
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