Pintupi is an Australian Aboriginal language. It is one of the Wati languages of the large Pama–Nyungan family. It is one of the varieties of the Western Desert Language (WDL). 

Pintupi is traditionally located in the Northern Territory of Australia. However, Pintupi people have married into or migrated into the Goldfields WA region and the language can be found amongst the Goldfields population. 

Pintupi is the name commonly used to refer to a variety of the Western Desert Language spoken by indigenous people whose traditional lands are in the area between Lake Macdonald and Lake Mackay, stretching from Mount Liebig in the Northern Territory to Jupiter Well (west of Pollock Hills) in Western Australia. These people moved (or were forced to move) into the indigenous communities of Papunya and Haasts Bluff in the west of the Northern Territory in the 1940s–1980s. The last Pintupi people to leave their traditional lifestyle in the desert came into Kiwirrkura in 1984.[5] Over recent decades they have moved back into their traditional country, setting up the communities of Kintore (in Pintupi known as Walungurru) in the Northern Territory, Kiwirrkura and Jupiter Well (in Pintupi Puntutjarrpa) in Western Australia. (Wikipedia) 

Children who were born in Papunya and Haasts Bluff grew up speaking a new variety of Pintupi, now known as Pintupi-Luritja, due to their close contact with speakers of Arrernte, Warlpiri and other varieties of the WDL. This has continued through the moves west so that most Pintupi people today speak Pintupi-Luritja, although there remains a clear distinction between the more western and eastern varieties. 

Pintupi is one of the healthier Aboriginal languages and is taught to local children in schools.

Pintupi Resources

Pintupi Alphabet Chart

GALCAC stocks a colourful, rip-proof wall chart of the Pintupi alphabet. Or a downloadable version is available here for free. To purchase the Pintupi chart, email GALCAC on info@wangka.com.au or phone (08) 9021 3788. Payment by credit card available. Charts are $40 each.

Pintupi Dictionary

The printed Pintupi Dictionary is out of stock and out of print as of March 2022.

However, an online version of the book by Ken and Leslie Hansen in 1973 is available. 

Pintupi Books

GALCAC stocks ‘Bushfires and Bushtucker’ which contains information about Pintupi fire and food processes.