Yirriyengburnama-langwa mamawura-langwa: Talking about time in Anindilyakwa

This chapter examines salient notions of time and temporality in Anindilyakwa, the language of the Warnumamalya people of the Groote Eylandt archipelago. Discussion of core social and spiritual aspects of Warnumamalya life (in particular associations between kinship and amalawudawarra 'totems, dreamings') provide the infrastructure and background for exploring words and concepts relating to temporal categories. A key topic related to this involves connections with the natural environment, where the categorization and delineation of many time words in Anindilyakwa are associated with connections between the sun, moon, winds, and changing seasonal cycles of biological and botanical life. On a similar note, the intersecting domains of space and time are of interest to this chapter, given the many parallels in the expression of spatial and temporal expression in various lexical and grammatical domains of the language. A key theme that emerges throughout is the interconnectedness between time words with place and Country, the environment, changing weather patterns, and the local ecology.