Which language would that be?

Worawa Aboriginal College at Healesville has reopened. The Age article makes mention of two students from Yuendumu, and their excitement at being able to speak their 'native language' in class. The journalist goes to the trouble of identifying that the students come from Yuendumu, and of explaining that Yuendumu lies 270km north-west of Alice Springs, yet fails to mention the name of their 'native language'.

Given the students come from Yuendumu, we might suppose they speak Warlpiri. An interesting feature of education in Warlpiri communities is their Community Controlled Schools. These schools have language learning (Warlpiri and English) as a high priority. They are also known as Two-Way schools (formerly bilingual). Even though these programs are not being fully-supported, it is unlikely that students are strongly discouraged from speaking Warlpiri in Yuendumu classrooms. One wonders why, then, the journalist took the view that these Warlpiri students should be excited to able to speak their native language in the classroom, given this is probably not a remarkable event for them.

But I guess it is remarkable to a down-south whitefella that some Aboriginal people a) still speak their languages and b) would dare/are able to do so in classrooms, in the wake of historical accounts of children being abused for having done so in the past. So perhaps, the *excitement* is that of the journalist.

The Linguists heart's NY

In case anyone reading this is in New York, or can get there, there will be a screening of the film The Linguists (as discussed here and here) on June 2. (Still no news on availability of the film on DVD.) This from the production company:


To accommodate the demand for tickets for the NY Premiere of THE LINGUISTS at the 'Sundance Institute at BAM' series, a second screening has been added!

The screening will take place on Monday, June 2, at 9:40 PM, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, 30 Lafayette Ave., Brooklyn, NY. The screening will be followed by Q&A with directors Seth Kramer, Daniel A. Miller, and Jeremy Newberger.

You may purchase tickets:

Online at https://www.movietickets.com/purchase.asp?perf_id=555242703

By calling 718.777.FILM. Order by name of movie (LIN/546), or on June 2, use theater express code 545;

Or from the BAM Rose Cinemas Box Office, starting June 2 at 6 PM.

For information, visit http://bam.org/sundance/film_sundance.aspx?id=1181.

For THE LINGUISTS' trailer, media coverage, and other screenings, visit http://www.thelinguists.com.

For more information contact:

Ironbound Films, Inc.
PO Box 441
Garrison, NY 10524
T: 845.424.3700
F: 845.424.3753
http://www.ironboundfilms.com
http://www.thelinguists.com

The tribulations of writing a PhD on an endangered language #1

A looming deadline requiring a cogent analysis can drive the PhD student to great lengths to get the data she needs.

Speakers of endangered languages can be quite tricky to come by. Being human beings, speakers also have their own lives, which (unfortunately) do not revolve around the PhD student and said deadline.

Negotiation is then required, such that both parties in the 'language exchange' may feel satisfied with the terms and outcomes of data-gathering. Monetary payment for time afforded is one common means. Additionally, favours may be offered or elicited. E.g. "In exchange for you giving up your afternoon (and planned fishing trip) to do language work with me, I'll take you and your family fishing tomorrow".

Exactly such an arrangement was agreed upon during my recent field trip. Needing to ask more pesky language questions of the speakers I took fishing, I planned to sit down beside them as they fished, pull out my laptop and resolve a few burning issues in the analysis of demonstrative use in Dalabon.

All began well. As it turned out, family members fished while the speaker and I sat at a distance and got focussed. As is typical for this time of year in the Top End, the long grass at this particular fishing spot was set fire to by members of our party, to 'clean up' the country after months of unwieldy vegetation growth during the wet season. The grassfire seemed a little keen on heading towards where I was sitting with the speaker, further up the embankment than those fishing. Despite worrying about sounding like the overly-anxious, bush-naive whitefella I really am, I announced my concerns to the speaker, who quickly dismissed them as bush-naive, overly-anxious whitefella worries. Grassfires at this time of year never really go anywhere, or pose any threat! They just die out. They're certainly not intense enough to burn trees.

So, we got on with the work. Ash kept falling on my laptop, and like an overly-anxious whitefella, I would worry about potential damage this may cause. Suddenly, the speaker and I noticed the grassfire climbing up towards us, with considerable momentum. I can be heard on the recording saying 'QB I think we had better move very quickly!' (I'm afraid I don't yet do emergencies in Dalabon.)

We gathered up our things and dumped them in the ute and quickly drove around and out of the way - only to see the fire charge through our sitting spot within a minute of us vacating it. Adrenalin still pumping, we found ourselves another spot, further up again, confident that the fire our party had started had now passed through. Determined to get the answers I needed, we ploughed on, though both of us now entirely distracted by our near-miss.

More crackling could be heard, and more smoke was blowing our way. Another fire-front was declaring itself, this time coming from the opposite direction. It seemed we weren't the only party in the area burning off. Only the wind on this day seemed to have plans to contribute to this exercise - it turned and the fire that had just passed through, more or less burning itself out, was now being cut off by another front moving directly at it.

The speaker and I abandoned our high-up position and any hope of getting checking done, and headed back down to the riverbank where the others were fishing. We were now behind the original fire front, and, we hoped, out of the way of this new front, which was moving through the higher terrain.

Not much fishing action was happening. Well, not much was being achieved. I took some photos of the kids in our party, saw a yawok, took its photo and learnt a bit about its story. We demolished the snacks I brought.

All the while the new fire-front was burning and crackling to the side of where we were, and above us. In my down-south world, such a situation is deeply-coded as EMERGENCY!!! Up north however, I have to stifle that reaction with constant self-talk of 'It's a normal part of land management.' 'These aren't intense fires', 'How beautiful the fire looks at night.' etc.

So there I was, sitting by the river eating crackers, stifling my fear of the ever-approaching new front. Well, not stifling entirely. I was constructing emergency responses: 'get into the river and hold your laptop above your head!', while coolly pretending to not be concerned - taking my cue from those around me. Participant observation is quite the challenge!

Eventually it became clear that, while slow-moving, the new fire-front was in every likelihood going to pass through where we were sitting. Thus armed with a good excuse for not having caught many fish, (and, to my great relief!) the party quickly agreed that we should abandon the trip and head home. The speaker made promises that she and I would sit down at her camp to go through my questions, but in reality we were both too tired from the adventure to follow through.

Somehow I think this story would be more impressive if I'd managed to procure a linguistic gem out of it!! Linguist nearly dies in bushfire but retrieves long-lost word!

Heads up

Via Language Log comes this discussion at Freakonomics about globalization and languages.

Parse and discuss

Tips on reducing your language footprint #2

Learning to speak an endangered language must be the best way to reduce one's language footprint. However, the very nature of language endangerment often means there is a lack of teaching materials or available speakers from whom to learn. For those who are interested in learning an Australian language, yet feel entirely removed from the possibility, there are a few good opportunities to do so.

Probably the most established course is Yolngu Studies at CDU. Yolngu Matha is a cover term for the languages/dialects from North-eastern Arnhem Land, and can be studied online through Charles Darwin University.

Ngapartji Ngapartji is a Pitjantjatjara language-learning site, and art project.

Institute for Aboriginal Development in Alice Springs used to offer language learning courses for languages in the centre. My grandparents learnt some Pitjantjatjara there many years ago! I’m not sure if IAD still offer language courses, though they are churning out dictionaries and learners’ guides!

Diwurruwurru-jaru Aboriginal Corporation (the Katherine Aboriginal Language Centre) offers regular Kriol language awareness courses. Kriol is an English-based creole spoken throughout the Top End and Kimberley, and has various dialects.

Does anyone else know of formal language-learning opportunities in Australia for outsiders?

More language footprints

Peter Austin has provided an elaborating post on the origin and argument for the concept of a language footprint, and Lauredhel started a lively discussion about the topic at Hoyden About Town (great blog, by the way). I added to the discussion there, but thought I'd post some of those comments here too - since we're all about ecological consciousness at the mo, recycling seems in order:

As for my own language footprint? I wonder whether it’s really as small as I would like to think. I’m a native English speaker in Australia. I speak Dutch, German, Spanish and a bit of Portuguese and French. These are all European, of course. I want to learn some more world languages, in particular, Hindi. This still doesn't do much for my language footprint. I also document Australian indigenous languages, one in particular: Dalabon. I can speak it *fairly* comfortably now, but more often than not, speak Kriol or English with the Dalabon people I work with. While all the documentation activity may reduce my language footprint, speaking Kriol with Dalabon people surely undoes most of that ‘good’ work.

That I speak Kriol with Dalabon people surely gets at the socio-linguistic heart of the matter: the desire to connect with other human beings, and when this can be done more efficiently in one language than another, good intentions give way to efficiency. It requires phenomenal discipline to overcome this, and this is the aim of the master-apprentice scheme, as recently discussed on the RNLD list.

In my favour - and towards reducing my language footprint, I do engage in some activities which may mitigate against my use of Kriol. The very activity of documenting Dalabon creates a domain in which the language is spoken, given it is otherwise largely silent. Transcribing the recordings has also greatly improved the Dalabon of my main consultant. Another tick. I also lecture Dalabon students enrolled in Certificate 1 in Own Language Work at Batchelor. Hopefully these activities will go some way towards revitalising the language. Of course, me speaking it more with my consultants, and encouraging them to do the same with their children is the golden standard.

Via Perez comes news of a Kimberley mining company continuing to use the name of a deceased Aboriginal man, despite requests, complaints and protests from the family.

Perhaps the mining company's management would have benefitted from reading these guidelines?

Tips on reducing your language footprint #1

Marry a speaker of an endangered language.

(Tongue in cheek, s.v.p.)

Not only will you have a greatly improved opportunity to learn the endangered language, you will also have a consultant at hand - very handy for those random questions needing checking.

Reducing one's language footprint is a long-term commitment and practice. By marrying an endangered language speaker, you can also participate in furthering the transmission of the language to your own progeny.

Meta-Aboriginality?

I wonder whether these guidelines for language use when referring to and discussing Aboriginal peoples and their cultures will achieve the desired outcome? While I agree with the content being proposed, and would like to think that I largely adhere to the guidelines, we all know how Australians love to mock and deride political correctness, especially in the form of language planning.

The joys of working on endangered languages #2

Sometimes the discoveries seem just that much greater. When speakers use a form in exactly the way they've been professing is impossible, there is a sense of vindication for the analyst: I knew that form had that function!

In the endangered language context, the researcher has less opportunity to 'accidentally overhear' such uses to confirm their analysis. Instead, the researcher has to either generate circumstances and scenarios which *may* provoke the form and use they are interested in (though more often than not, *may not* generate the sought-after usage), or ask speakers straight-out for their judgements on usages (a somewhat fraught and sometimes empirically-questioned methodology).

So, when there is:

a) no observational data;
b) no uses in initial 'generated scenarios' and
c) speaker judgements against a particular analysis,

the researcher should probably accept that their analysis is unfounded.

Imagine then the joy upon finding exactly the sought-after token in a last-ditch attempt to find one, in another 'generated scenario'!

Sad News

Dr. Marika, a Yolngu woman, Territorian of the Year in 2006, and passionate promoter of cultural exchange, reconciliation and bilingual education died of a heart attack on Sunday while hunting with her family near Yirrkala.

Jenny Macklin has released a media release (not yet available on her website) acknowledging Dr. Marika's contribution to Indigenous affairs, stating, '(s)he was an exceptional linguist and teacher. She understood all 14 clan languages of the Rirratjingu people and spoke three of them fluently. She led the development of the curriculum for Yolgnu children and taught others her language and culture at Charles Darwin University where she was awarded an honorary doctorate. (...) Dr Marika moved effortlessly between her traditional culture and contemporary Australia like fresh and salt water mixing in the lagoon – her own metaphor for two-way education.'

Readers may remember her contributions in plenaries at the Indigenous Languages Conference in Adelaide last year.

News reports:

Nicholas Rothwell's piece in The Australian is particularly affectionate.

ABC

The pitfalls of working on endangered languages #4

Precious, precious words can be lost to the community, and to the researcher, when recordings purporting to create a permanent and comprehensive account of the language feature speakers talking with their fingers in their mouths.

When lacking the advanced deciphering skills of a dentist, it is advisible to refrain from asking speakers to discuss painful teeth (real or imagined), as such discussion may cause severe disturbance to the linguistic signal.

Language Footprint

Via Transient Languages and Cultures, comes news from Peter Austin of Endangered Languages Week at SOAS.

My interest was particularly piqued by the debate on "What is your language footprint?"

One has a large language footprint if your actions contribute to the dominance of majority, high-status, politically-powerful languages, and smaller language footprint if your actions contribute to raising the use, awareness and status of endangered or otherwise minority languages.

I'd've loved to have heard the debate, but even without having attended, I'm enamoured of the concept of a language footprint! Especially cool is the proposition that one can off-set one's language footprint (from ELDP's website):

(Y)ou can support increased language learning in your own country, switch holidays to places where your language is not intrusive, sponsor efforts towards language maintenance in other communities, support another person to learn a language, learn about the world’s diversity of languages, and help make others aware of the problem of language endangerment.

Maybe I could start hitting up frequent English-language publishers (newspapers etc) for funding towards Dalabon documentation efforts, as off-set for their large language footprints??!! It's probably not so far-fetched.

Perhaps a small language footprint would be the ideal measure you were looking for, Wamut?

Im pappap fo thet yem

This is a yawok. The Dalabon dictionary (Evans, Merlan & Tukumba 2004) calls is a grasshopper, but I think it looks more like a cicada.



While I was fussing about trying to take its photo while it kept trying to get away, QB told me that im pappap fo thet yem: 'it's the 'puppy' for the (cheeky) yam'.

The name for the cheeky yam in Dalabon is also yawok. When the grasshopper is making is noise (I guess mating?), Dalabon people know that the yam is ripe. What I think QB was saying with the word pappap (< puppy) is that the grasshopper is an animal indicator, for a plant. I'm sure there's a mythological reason for calling it a 'puppy', as in a pet (she also told me that mimihs (spirits) also have pappaps), but we didn't really get to that.

These 'seasonal indicators' are not uncommon. The yellow kapok flowering is a seasonal indicator that the turtles and crocodiles are laying their eggs. In this relationship, the plant is the indicator of animal behaviour, whereas the yawok(s) is in the inverse relationship.

Evans (1997) writes of sign metonymies where animals and plants in these kinds of 'indicator' relationships, or are just associated in space and interdependence, may be referred to by the same term. Obviously, yawok is such a pair. Another example comes from one dialect of Bininj Gun-Wok, where the same name (bokorn) is given to the fruit of the white apple tree, which hangs over water, and the ?rifle fish which feeds on this fruit, once it falls into the water.

I love how Kriol gives away relationships in a way neither English or the traditional language can (well, given my as-yet-still-developing Dalabon competency!!).


References
Evans, Nicholas. 1997. Sign metonymies and the problem of flora-fauna polysemy in Australian linguistics. In D. Tryon & M. Walsh, eds., Boundary Rider. Essays in Honour of Geoffrey O’Grady. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. C-136.

Evans, Nicholas, Francesca Merlan, and Maggie Tukumba. 2004. A First Dictionary of Dalabon. Maningrida: Bawinanga Aboriginal Corporation.

The pitfalls of working on endangered languages #3

When conducting an experiment designed to elicit language-in-use tokens of demonstratives, it is best to ensure in advance that the speakers know the language names of the items you expect them to refer to in the endangered language - no matter how 'basic' the vocabulary might seem to the non-native user of the endangered language.

While the situation may generate perfectly natural language-in-use tokens of speakers searching in vain to for the (incidental to the researcher in this context at least) lexeme, and plenty of tokens of the 'whatsit' demonstrative, straightforward tokens of 'this tooth' may, in the end, be few and far between.

Erdős number in linguistics

I wonder whether we might conceive of an Erdős number for linguistics?

In mathematics, one's Erdős number is the number of degrees one's publication record is removed from Paul Erdős, a prolific mathematician who published circa 1,500 articles. Erdős has an Erdős number of zero; any of his co-authors have an Erdős number of 1; any of their co-authors (who have not directly co-authored with Erdős) have an Erdős number of 2 etc.

Only, on what premise would it be done in linguistics? If it were calculated by publications radiating outwards from one individual, who would that individual be? A foundation figure such as de Saussure - who did not have a long publication record, however, or a more recent figure such as Chomksy? My Chomksy number has a certain ring!!

Or, because we're all about the data, would we calculate a language number instead, based on the language(s) we've worked with most? Taking perhaps English as 'zero', we could count outwards in degrees of 'relatedness', or number of branches removed on a genetic family tree. Only, the world's languages do not constitute a single language family - how would we calculate outside Indo-European? And arguments and changing analyses about degrees of relatedness would mean these numbers would forever need updating.

What about a number from the Ethnologue statistical summaries? Or, a number based on the UNESCO 9 criteria used to measure language vitality? Any thoughts?

Endangered languages on Facebook and in films

A friend has created a group on Facebook to promote the use of endangered languages in status updates ("Use endangered language for status up-date"). I got excited and changed mine immediately to the first thing that popped into my head in Dalabon: kah-rinjno burrama. Upon realising that it would probably help the cause if I also included a translation in my status update, I got shy and decided I would commence this practice with subsequent status updates. The cause of my shyness will remain a secret held among those privileged few Dalabonists!!

Secondly, via a colleague at Wangka Maya and ¡Pérez Sez!, comes news of the release of The Linguists. I saw a rough cut of this at the ELDP workshop I went to in June 2006, and while objections were raised there (and subsequently elsewhere, nicely summarised in Perez's post), and I find myself agreeing with a lot of them, it was still pretty cool to see the dynamics of linguistic fieldwork and the thrill of human interaction over languages on the 'big screen' as it were.

Perez asks the questions, 'Does a subject necessarily have to be misrepresented in order to be made accessible?' and 'Is a degree of misrepresentation OK if it entails a greater awareness of a critical issue?' I think the answers in part can be found in the reviews published on the film's website. One review seems to 'get it', while others are swept away in the 'adventure' of it all, with lots of similies and metaphors about Indiana Jones. (Remember, these are the reviews the film's producers are themselves using to further promote the film.)

Vanity Fair 'gets it', in my view:

"The excitement of these two professors proves contagious, and as the film reveals how cultural shame and colonialism have factored in the loss of these languages, their incredible dedication becomes all the more compelling."

Obviously, the two 'lead characters' are the linguists, and thus the 'story' is about them, and their interest and passion on these languages (possibly portraying them as 'saviours', to the chagrin of many) - more so than the speakers or languages. But in response to Perez' questions, I think the Vanity Fair review shows that the message was accessible (and probably not misrepresented in order to be accessible), and that awareness of the critical issues of cultural shame, colonialism (which we may extend to include ongoing policies which further endanger endangered languages) is achieved and the value of these languages is grasped through the 'contagious' and 'compelling' 'dedication' of the linguists.

So, to Perez, and without having seen the final product, I think the subject matter doesn't have to be dumbed down or mis-represented (how ever linguists may want to argue about the appropriateness of the activity and methodology the film documents), in order for the message to be communicated. The audience will always take what they will, and in great variety (as seen in the reviews).

I will most definitely be getting a copy, and expect to be entertained and given fodder for critical analysis in equal measure. And keep my fingers crossed for a high quality drama which does even more on this topic.

Posting vicariously

I'm too cranky with Rudd and McLelland's capitulation to the religious right to compose a mild-mannered post, so I'll leave it to John Hajek and Yvette Slaughter to say something intelligent and balanced about Rudd's language capacity while still sticking it to him about a narrow-focus on Asian languages. Woulda liked to have seen something in there about Indigenous languages too, but we're still a long way off from 'every Australian child should learn an Indigenous language at school'.

(Yes, I know that's a political minefield, even before you get remotely mainstream. One can but dream).