ILC and ALS

So last week was the ILC and ALS conferences. I has such a great time and so enjoyed them both that I have decided to over-use bold type.

So much to say, and usually I'd be so overwhelmend at trying to say it all, that I'd procrastinate long enough such that posting on said event would no longer be current, and therefore give me an excuse to not do it! So I'm going to bite the bullet and see what happens when I approach the task stream-of-consciousness style.

ILC first, because it started first, and has left the biggest impression. I really, really appreciated being a part of an event that featured so many Indigenous/Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and linguists and educators who are all passionate and sometimes emotional about working on/with/for Australian languages. It's great to get re-fired up about all the reasons why this work is so important, to articulate and rationalise them, to make new connections and learn about new approaches and initiatives, to come away with a strong impression that all parties are keen to work together for everyone's interests.

I think ILC was also really important as a space for people (Indigenous and non-Indigenous alike) to acknowledge and debrief from the grief and distress and challenges of language endangerment and the political threats to all our efforts. I guess it was inevitable that sometimes this debriefing would take over sessions which might have been intended for more general discussions (e.g. question time after plenaries, hypothetical). Overall though, I think a balance between debriefing and general discussion was achieved.

The plenaries were excellent, and the committee are to be congratulated on their choices here. Phil Cash Cash and Te Haumihiata Mason were both great treats. Hopefully at the next ILC we'll have some plenaries from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander speakers. Of course we heard from many established Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander language activists/workers/linguists in panel sessions, but I'm looking forward to hearing Alitya Rigney, Jeanie Bell, Raymattja Marika, Leonora Adidi, Lorraine Injie and others take the floor for a full plenary.

I'm still chewing over Jane Simpson and Michael Walsh's plenaries, and looking forward to the video being posted on the ILC website so I can listen again. Jane argued (if I understood correctly) that the Government's agenda with the Intervention and more broadly is to require Aboriginal people in remote communities to get jobs. Where there are no jobs in remote communities, people will have to move to regional towns for work. This will have the language consequence of people who speak endangered Aboriginal languages shifting to speak dominant languages such as Kriol and (Aboriginal) English. Coupled with the expected population shift will be a decline in Government service provision to remote communities. Included in this would be support for bilingual or other two-way language programs in remote schools, as there would no longer be the remotely-located population to *sustain* them. And we all know that town schools aren't going to start offering bilingual programs for displaced language groups. I'm not sure if I agree that remote Aboriginal people really will move into towns despite all the Government's *coaxing*, but I think it's fair to expect that there's more intervening yet to be introduced.

The parallel sessions featured many fantastic presentations by individuals and groups about the work they've been doing to document/revitalise/renew their languages. The NSW Board of Studies held a panel discussion about the 'ripple effect' of language work going on in NSW. Batchelor Own Language Work students from Central Australia and Higher Ed Students from all over proudly talked about their work and the stories behind it.

Patrick McConvell reported on Emergency Language Documentation on Cape York and Cape York residents implored us to help them work on getting language into school there - contra to Noel Pearson's view that language does not belong in schools. We travelled to Japan with Kylie Martin to hear about Ainu language practices in the face of virtual non-socio/cultural existance in mainstream Japan.

Thursday was given over to parallel sessions, and in someways this was the best day, when finally the members of the audience who had sat listening to plenaries and panels for the past two days got their turn out the front.

Betty Morrison Nakkamarra and Samantha Disbray told us about children's language and language learning in Tennant Creek. Wamut, Freda Roberts and John Joshua spoke about the work going on at the Ngukurr Language centre - all carried out by heroes. I think Wamut forgot to include himself in the hero honour list. Small oversight, but not one we should let him get away with!

Rachel Willika and I gave a talk about the Dalabon Oral Histories project we've been doing, and that was a lot of fun to do. I think it went ok too.

I think this post is long enough already: wrapping up ALS will have to wait for another post!