Danielle MacLean is an Australian filmmaker. She is known for her writing on television series such as Little J & Big Cuz , 8MMM Aboriginal Radio and Redfern Now .
20-631: MacLean is of the Luritja and Warumungu peoples of the Northern Territory of Australia. MacLean started work at Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association (CAAMA) Productions as a production assistant, later moving on to writing and directing, working under Erica Glynn . She originally wanted to be a stills photographer . She lived in Central Australia working on a TV documentary series called Nganampa Anwernekenhe which means "ours" in
40-506: A length distinction creating a total of six possible vowels. As shown in the chart, the WDL distinguishes five positions of articulation, and has oral and nasal occlusives at each position. The stops have no phonemic voice distinction but display voiced and unvoiced allophones ; stops are usually unvoiced at the beginning of a word, and voiced elsewhere. In both positions, they are usually unaspirated. There are no fricative consonants . While
60-534: A network of closely related dialects; the names of some of these have become quite well known (such as Pitjantjatjara ) and they are often referred to as "languages". As the whole group of dialects that constitutes the language does not have its own name it is usually referred to as the Western Desert Language. WDL speakers referring to the overall language use various terms including wangka ("language") or wangka yuti ("clear speech"). For native speakers,
80-531: Is a dialect cluster of Australian Aboriginal languages in the Pama–Nyungan family . The name Wati tends to be used when considering the various varieties to be distinct languages, Western Desert when considering them dialects of a single language, or Wati as Warnman plus the Western Desert cluster. The speakers of the various dialects of the Western Desert Language traditionally lived across much of
100-886: Is immediately west of the Derwent River, that formed their frontier with the Arrernte. He defined them as dwelling west of the Gosse Range and Palm Valley on the south MacDonnell Ranges . Their southern limits went as far as Tempe Downs , and they ranged southwest to Lake Amadeus , the George Gill Range , the Merandji (the Cleland Hills) and Inindi near Mount Forbes. They were also present round Palmer, Walker, and Rudall creeks. According to AUSTLANG , two areas of Luritja speakers have been distinguished: southern groups, whose language
120-561: Is influenced by Yankunytjatjara language , living south of Hermmannsburg , and another group, referred to as Pintupi -Luritja, whose traditional land lies north-west and west of Hermannsburg, including Haasts Bluff , Papunya , Mt Liebig and Kintore . The Luritja people established the Luritja Land Association in 1974, which was the first Aboriginal land rights organisation in Central Australia . In December 1993, around 4,750 square kilometres (1,830 sq mi) of land
140-574: Is the Luritja dialect, a Western Desert language . The name Kukatja or Kukatj is one shared by four other distinct tribes throughout Australia. The root of the word seems to suggest pride in being "meat eaters" rather than people who scrounge for vegetables for sustenance. The Northern Territory Kukatja were often referred to in the ethnographical literature by Arerrnte exonyms for them, either Loritja or Aluritja , which bore pejorative connotations. According to Kenny (2013), "The people living to
160-552: The Pitjantjatjara and Arrernte languages The series started in 1987 and comprised 187 half-hour episodes. which was shot in the bush communities and broadcast on Imparja Television . In 1997, she was supported by Screen Australia 's Indigenous unit to act as both writer and director of a short drama film, My Colour Your Kind , about an albino Aboriginal teenager attending a convent boarding school in Alice Springs . The film
180-609: The Australian TV drama mini-series, True Colours , which was produced for SBS Television and NITV and aired in 2022. Luritja The Luritja or Loritja people, also known as Kukatja or Kukatja-Luritja , are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Northern Territory . Their traditional lands are immediately west of the Derwent River, that forms a frontier with the Arrernte people , with their lands covering some 27,000 square kilometres (10,300 sq mi). Their language
200-566: The acclaimed drama series, Redfern Now . In the same year, she wrote and produced Croker Island Exodus a documentary film which screened Sydney Film Festival and the Melbourne International Film Festival , and was broadcast on ABC Television . MacLean wrote and directed Blown Away , released in 2014, an hour-long documentary about Cyclone Tracy which caused extensive damage to Darwin in 1974. The film shows previously unrecorded responses by Indigenous Darwinians to
220-527: The desert areas of Western Australia, South Australia and the Northern Territory. Most Western Desert people live in communities on or close to their traditional lands, although some now live in one of the towns fringing the desert area such as Kalgoorlie , Laverton , Alice Springs , Port Augusta , Meekatharra , Halls Creek and Fitzroy Crossing . The following is a partial list of Western Desert communities: The Western Desert Language consists of
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#1732876216130240-551: The dialects of the WDL have very similar phonologies there are several different orthographies in use, resulting from the preferences of the different early researchers as well as the fact that the WDL region extends into three states (Western Australia, South Australia and the Northern Territory), with each having its own history of language research and educational policy. Most of the peoples of central Australia have (or at one point had) signed forms of their languages. Among
260-478: The disaster. The film features Aunty Kathy Mills , Dr Ella Stack , General Alan Stretton , Mayor Tiger Brennan , Prime Minister Gough Whitlam , publisher and writer Sophie Cunningham , and politician (later NT Human Rights Commissioner) Dawn Lawrie . She wrote three episodes of the Indigenous Australian comedy series, 8MMM Aboriginal Radio , which aired on ABC2 in 2014. She wrote episode 5 of
280-512: The immediate west of the Western Aranda called themselves Kukatja or Loritja at the turn of the twentieth century. Today they call themselves Luritja or Kukatja-Luritja when referring to their ancestry and history." According to an estimate made by Norman Tindale , the Kukatja of the Northern Territory (Luritja) had tribal lands covering some 10,300 square miles (27,000 km ). Their territory
300-564: The language is mutually intelligible across its entire range. Following are some of the named varieties of the Western Desert Language. The Western Desert Language has thousands of speakers, making it one of the strongest indigenous Australian languages. The language is still being transmitted to children and has substantial amounts of literature, particularly in the Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara dialects in South Australia where there
320-502: The object of the first attempt to undertake an examination of Sigmund Freud 's psychoanalytic theories concerning "primitive" society in Australia when Géza Róheim did fieldwork among them for eight months in 1929. Source: Tindale 1974 , p. 229 Luritja people speak the Luritja language . The following are designated as Luritja words by R. H. Mathews . Western Desert language The Western Desert language , or Wati ,
340-471: The second series of Mystery Road , which went to air in 2020. MacLean collaborates frequently with Steven McGregor, and has also worked with Warwick Thornton , her cousin Beck Cole , Trisha Morton-Thomas and sound recordist David Tranter. She directed one of the segments of the anthology film We Are Still Here , which premiered as the opening film of the 2022 Sydney Film Festival . McLean also wrote for
360-473: Was formerly a long-running bilingual program. In the following tables of the WDL sound system, symbols in ⟨angle brackets⟩ give a typical practical orthography used by many WDL communities. Further details of orthographies in use in different areas are given below. Phonetic values in IPA are shown in [square brackets]. The Western Desert Language has the common (for Australia) three-vowel system with
380-592: Was purchased on behalf of the traditional owners , including the pastoral leases , Tempe Downs and Middleton Ponds. Over 350 Luritja people lived or intended to live on the land. The first sustained, fundamental ethnographic work on the Kukatja was done by the Lutheran missionary Carl Strehlow , who produced six monumental volumes in German on them and the neighbouring Arerrnte, published between 1907 and 1920. The Luritja, together with other central Australian peoples, were
400-420: Was selected for showing at several international film festivals , and nominated for several awards. Steven McGregor was producer on the film. She left CAAMA in 1999, becoming a freelance writer and director. In 2001 she wrote and directed For Who I am – Bonita Mabo , a documentary about Bonita Mabo . She wrote and directed Queen of Hearts , a drama, released in 2004. In 2012 MacLean wrote an episode of
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