Language and setting

Kalaw Kawaw Ya (KKY) is a dialect of the Western Torres Strait language, which is considered to belong to the Pama-Nyungan family, the largest of the Australian subgroupings (Dixon 1980). Kala Lagaw Ya, Kala Lagaw Langgus, Yagar Yagar and Mabuiag are other names which have been applied to the Western Torres Strait language or another of its dialects. Speakers have agreed that the language as a whole should be called Kala Lagaw Ya, the ‘Western Island Language’.

The Western Torres Strait region, whose islands and waters lie mainly within Australia's international boundaries, includes four dialect zones, marked by broken lines on map 7.1. The description presented here comes from Saibai Island speakers and is representative of the northern zone. Kalaw Kawaw Ya is their own name for the ‘Western Island Language’. Bani and Klokeid (1975 and 1976) have described the dialect of Mabuiag Island in the western central zone. The dialect of the eastern central zone is used only by older speakers; younger people have adopted Torres Strait Creole (see Shnukal, this volume) as their mother tongue. The southern zone includes the town of Thursday Island, the administrative and service centre for the region, where groups of speakers from different dialect zones now live.