ABSTRACT
Chapter 3 provides an overview of the diversity of linguistic and social groupings at Warruwi, with a focus on how languages relate to social groupings and land ownership. In addition, it shows how linguists classify ways of speaking into languages, dialects or varieties, which may or may not match with speakers’ classifications of their own languages. The chapter starts with the example of Manangkardi, said to have been the original language of Warruwi, which serves to highlight how the classification of languages varies depending on your standpoint. To further understand local perspectives on language, the chapter discusses the local Indigenous conception of language ownership. The analytic framework of language ideologies and language practices is introduced, which will be useful in later chapters when we need to account for why people’s ideas about language are not always reflected by what they do. Finally, this chapter considers the idea of the speech community and its importance in defining the boundaries of a study. Warruwi Community can be considered a speech community because of shared perspectives on language, shared ways of using language and a sense of a shared history.
