Langguj Gel

New Report on Indigenous Language in Schools

2008-12-10T10:29:00.000+09:30

I'm a little short on time (and head-space for proper critical analysis and commentary) at the moment, but I'm still keen to post on the many goings-on in the world of Australian Indigenous languages, and policy relating to them.

So with that as pre-cursory statement, I present the following text copied from Julia Gillard's media release (I haven't read the report yet, but you can download it here):

The Minister for Education, the Hon Julia Gillard, today released the Indigenous Language Programs in Australian Schools — A Way Forward report.

The report was prepared by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER), funded by the Australian Government’s School Languages Program.

The report provides a snapshot of the current situation of Indigenous language education in schools across Australia.

Over 16 000 Indigenous students and 13 000 non-Indigenous students located in 260 Australian schools are involved in an Indigenous language program.

The report reveals that over 80 different Indigenous languages are taught in schools throughout Australia.

The report found that learning an Indigenous language can enhance a range of social and academic outcomes for all students.

The Australian Government is committed to supporting languages education in Australian schools. The School Languages Program provides funding of $112 million from 2005 to 2008 to support the learning of all languages, including Indigenous languages.

The Australian Government has also committed $540 million to improve literacy and numeracy outcomes and close the gap in educational attainment for Indigenous Australians.

The Government firmly believes that all Australian students need to be proficient in English to be able to full participate in the world of work and further study.

This is what it's all about

2008-12-09T23:18:00.002+09:30

Tonight I met a woman from Adelaide, whose mother was taken away/stolen from the communities where I work. Her mother is Dalabon. I was excited to make the connection, as I think she was too.

I was also all too aware that having a whitefella tell you that they're completing a PhD on the language you never got a chance to learn was likely pretty alienating. I'm hoping to meet up with her again on Thursday night at the closing night concert, and hear more from her about her story/ies, and to see what I can offer.

AWAYE! weighs in to the Bilingual debate

2008-12-09T19:46:00.000+09:30

The Radio National Aboriginal arts and culture program AWAYE! most recently did a feature show on the bilingual education issue in the NT. They also took in a wider view of indigenous language maintenance and revitalisation around the country.

I haven't had a chance to listen to the program yet in full, but have downloaded it for closer scrutiny in the near future. So, this post is a heads-up on what promises to be a fairly close look at the situation.

WIPCE on the radio

2008-12-09T14:20:00.002+09:30

On tomorrow's breakfast program, 3CR will be broadcasting interviews with two deadly women from Barunga (Marie Brennan) and Beswick (Miliwanga Sandy), who are attending WIPCE. If you're in Melbourne, it's 855AM, otherwise stream it from their website. No podcasts, only live.

WIPCE invitation

2008-12-09T09:31:00.002+09:30

The World Indigenous Peoples' Conference on Education is on in Melbourne at the moment. I went to the opening festival on Sunday at the Aborigines Advancement League and was duly swept up in the excitement and emotion of such a large gathering of proud indigenous people from all over the world.

It's extra special for me too, cos some of the people I work with from up north are visiting Melbourne to attend the conference. So we've been doing all the tourist things like going to the Queen Victoria Market (good: the food! bad: seeing all the 'Made in China' Aboriginal souvenirs), visiting my family, going up the Eureka Tower. It's great to be able to play host in return for once!

Being at the opening festival was also an amazing lesson in indigenous solidarity: getting commentary from my co-collaborators on their thoughts about all the various performances we witnessed from Māori, Hawai'ians, Canadian First Nations peoples, Ainu, Thursday Islanders, and Saami.

I'm not attending the actual conference, but am planning to attend the closing night this Thursday at the Tennis Centre. It's open to the public and is very affordable at $15. Big names like Archie Roach, Ruby Hunter and Kev Carmody are performing, as well as traditional performances by the delegates. They blew me away on Sunday at the opening festival. Tix are available from Ticketek, and are not allocated seating. Hope to see you there!!

More news on the film The Linguists

2008-12-05T22:36:00.005+09:30

I received the email from Ironbound Films, the production company behind The Linguists. The educational DVD looks like an exciting package, but it's $US300. Gulp.

[Update: in response to an email querying the price I got the following reply, "We do imagine releasing a consumer priced DVD in the future."]

* THE LINGUISTS educational DVD now available
* THE LINGUISTS screens worldwide
* President Bush views Ironbound video aboard the Intrepid
* Ironbound in production on two new feature hits

* * *

* THE LINGUISTS educational DVD now available

Universities, high schools, libraries, cultural centers: the educational DVD of Ironbound Films’ Sundance hit THE LINGUISTS is now available for purchase. Includes 30 minutes of DVD extras and discussion guide. DVDs will not ship until December 23, but preorder now to avoid the holiday rush: http://www.thelinguists.com/dvd.

* THE LINGUISTS screens worldwide

On Thursday, February 26, 2009, at 10 PM, THE LINGUISTS will air nationally on PBS (check local listings).

February 21 has been sanctioned by the UN “International Mother Language Day.” Refresh http://www.thelinguists.com/screenings.html as momentum builds to screen THE LINGUISTS worldwide. Stop by to see it this Sunday, December 7, at 3 PM, at the Peekskill Paramount Theater as part of Free Arts Day; or hop a flight to be part of its upcoming premiere in Mumbai, Paris, or Kathmandu.

If you can’t attend a screening, Google one. THE LINGUISTS was only the fifth film in the Filmmakers@Google series at Google HQ in Mountain View, CA. Watch 34 minutes of Q&A at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxI1MP3H92M.

* President Bush views Ironbound video aboard the Intrepid

President George W. Bush reopened the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in a ceremony this Veterans Day. He toured past Ironbound’s 50-foot video wall “that makes you feel like you are at sea” and saw our short documentary about takeoff and landing. Mission accomplished! Check out http://wcbstv.com/topstories/intrepid.world.war.2.859600.html to see video of our video.

* Ironbound in production on two new feature hits

In our usual globetrotting, Ironbound returns from a Kenya shoot for “The New Recruits,” a documentary about social entrepreneurship funded by PBS through a grant from the Skoll Foundation; and now departs for exotic New Jersey, where we have secured exclusive access to “The Morton Downey Jr. Show,” not seen by the public in 20 years. Fasten your seatbelts for this yet-to-be titled blockbuster on the pioneer of trash TV.

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

More on the Intervention

2008-11-19T20:35:00.003+09:30

Background Briefing on Radio National played a story on the Intervention this week. I heard most of it, and found it a *little* one-sided: all about how inconvenient the Intervention is, and not so much about some of the positive changes.

It seemed to parallel the ABC TV's recent show quite a lot, given that it was also recorded in the same communitites, with largely the same people, some of whom were related to the young man who recently shot himself near Bulman.

You win some, you lose some

2008-11-17T18:26:00.003+09:30

News today that meh will be added to the 30th anniversary edition of the Collins Dictionary. It will be defined as "an expression of indifference or boredom, or an adjective meaning mediocre or boring" and is attributed to Bart and Lisa Simpson (of The Simpsons).

The following may be old news to some (admittedly I heard of it a little while ago, but only found a good link today), but better late than never. Which is very appropriate, actually: The Collins Dictionary is trying to revive endangered English words, which are threatened with being culled from the next edition of the dictionary. A sample of words, taken from the Age article:

abstergent: cleansing or scouring;
agrestic: rural, rustic, unpolished, uncouth;
apodeictic: unquestionably true by virtue of demonstration;
caducity: perishableness, senility;
calignosity: dimness, darkness;
embrangle: to confuse or entangle;
exuviate: to shed (a skin or similar outer covering);
fatidical: prophetic;
griseous: streaked or mixed with grey;
somewhat grey;
malison: a curse;
mansuetude: gentleness, mildness;
niddering: cowardly;
nitid: bright, glistening;
olid: foul-smelling;
oppugnant: combative, antagonistic or contrary;
periapt: a charm or amulet;
recrement: waste matter; refuse; dross;
roborant: tending to fortify or increase strength;
vaticinate: to foretell; prophecy;
vilipend: to treat or regard with contempt.

Funnily (and fore-bodingly) enough, each of these words comes up as a 'spelling mistake' in my browser as I compose this!

The Collins people have started a campaign to increase the use of these words, so as to justify not giving them the heave-ho come editing time. Apparently celebrities have been engaged to 'adopt' a word, and start using it as much as possible, so it might catch on. Like fetch in Mean Girls, perhaps...

The Intervention: doco on ABC

2008-10-29T18:14:00.002+09:30

Tomorrow night at 9:30pm, the ABC is screening The Intervention, a doco about the Intervention in the Katherine region.

I know several of the people who feature in this, and remember when it was being shot - as I was in the region at the time. I'm waiting with baited breath to see it.

Cultural maintenance in new media

2008-10-27T12:18:00.003+09:30

John Bradley and Amanda Kearney (at Monash University's Centre for Australian Indigenous Studies) have been working for some time on developing an animation of a traditional Yanyuwa song, which recounts the journey of a tiger shark to Yanyuwa country.

The animation looks great - it was previewed on an Australian Story episode (earlier this year?) about Bradley and his work at Booroloola. Here is a link to an article about the animation project, and you can follow a link from there to a videoed interview with Bradley and Kearney, which also previews snippets of the animation. The article and the video both include some discussion about the adoption of modern technology in cultural maintenance, and some issues which emerged in doing so - to do with access, and literacy in new media.

Aboriginal (languages) in the media

2008-09-25T14:55:00.003+09:30

I haven't had a chance to listen to these yet, but thought I should post the links so others might before the media is no longer available.

Two Radio National shows of late have features stories with Aboriginal (language) content. The first is The Law Report, with a story on the interpreters in the courtroom, and the difficulties of doing their jobs well, especially for Indigenous interpreters.

The second is a discussion on Life Matters featuring Dr. Maggie Brady, dispelling the myths about Aboriginal people and alcohol, e.g. that they biologically can't handle it.

Did anyone catch these? Any comments on them?

Kaiadilt/Kayardild

2008-09-25T14:51:00.002+09:30

BTW, in the previous post, there is a link to an article in Age about the exhibition of art produced by Bentinck Island women.

The journalist makes the very astute (and correctly spelt!) distinction between the Kaiadilt people and the Kayardild language. Kudos.

And the art is *fabulous* and Nick Evans gave a great talk about it. I strongly encourage any readers in Melbourne to make their way there.

Kaiadilt in Melbourne

2008-09-20T10:04:00.002+09:30

Last minute post to any opportunistic Melbourne readers: Prof. Nick Evans will be giving a talk on an art exhibition of Kaiadilt women's paintings in Melbourne today at 3pm.

Age Article.

Alcaston Gallery.

Passing the baton on

2008-09-19T07:25:00.004+09:30

I’ll soon be giving the final lecture for the semester for the Aboriginal Languages unit I’ve been lecturing. All semester the emphasis has been on ‘You can go and work in Aboriginal Australia! It’s not inaccessible (in all senses of the word)’. I’d like to end the final lecture with a discussion on a ‘How to get into this field as a researcher or as a community linguist’. There’s the obvious honours/PhD path for a researcher. There’s also the less-obvious path of a community linguist.

I'd like to know from you:

1. How did you get into working with Aboriginal communities? By what connections?
2. What do you wish you’d known before you started working in Aboriginal Australia?

In relation to the second point, I've been thinking of few things, which are listed below. Some I lacked at the time, others I’m really grateful I knew of in advance. Most of these are specific to working in more remote contexts, any different points of view from less-remote areas are most welcome!

Aboriginal people are people, who have the same motivations and emotions as anyone else. And they're really forgiving of all the cross-cultural blunders you'll make for the first while.
There’s always a reason why people mightn’t choose to work with you, though it may not be personal. If you’re a good listener, a confidant will tell you what is going on such that X won’t work with you, and perhaps even point out which cross-cultural blunders you've made. You may even receive suggestions on how to overcome such an impasse. E.g. change the constellation of the language ‘team’ such that the speaker you seek won’t have to work with their mother-in-law behind the camera.
Humbug can be full on, and only you can work out the best way to respond to it.
The dependency you feel on your Aboriginal colleagues when out in the bush is a nice way to learn how it may feel for them when the roles are reversed.
Linguists have bad reputations in some parts, so be prepared to demonstrate how you’re different from your predecessors. And be prepared to accept that such a demonstration may not be enough for some communities.
There are a lot of really ignorant people in powerful positions. You and the language community you work with need to persevere nonetheless, either by talking the powerful ones around, or by doing things on your own terms.
Grants are there for the taking, so apply for them!
More knowledge about language endangerment issues and practices, such that I could have given better, more assured advice about school language programs.
Technical stuff? Using recording equipment and digital software?
There’s no need to reinvent the wheel. Take your time to learn what has been attempted before, and why it didn’t work.
The entirety of Nick Evans’ (2001) paper The last speaker is dead - long live the last speaker!
Wamut once made the suggestion that spending a couple of weeks in a community without any recording equipment could be a good way to get to know people, without always having a microphone between you. Can’t say I’d be able to resist the temptation to record every precious Dalabon word uttered by anyone I’d be spending time with in that context, though I do like the idea. Might be hard for community members to work out how to place you if you’re not overtly practising your ‘role’ however.

Evans, Nicholas. 2001. The last speaker is dead - long live the last speaker! In Linguistic Field Work, edited by Paul Newman and Martha Ratliff. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 250-281.

You know you're a linguist when...

2008-09-14T20:14:00.006+09:30

You listen to SBS radio just to see if you can figure out which language program is currently being aired, and listen for cognates with other languages you know.
You are so excited about the Phonemes application on Facebook you call others over to your computer to show them, only to be disappointed that you can't actually listen to the phone(me)s.
When speaking to someone who has a different dialect/first language to your own, you mimic their speech under your breath, trying to work out the place and manner of their articulation.
You overgeneralise the application of newly-acquired discourse markers in a different lect, just because you're so excited to try them out.
You find yourself explaining the difference between the lay and technical definitions of linguist, after being asked 'Oh, how many languages do you speak?'
You have a copy of the IPA stuck to the back of the toilet door.
You watch foreign-language films to see how much vocab you can pick up, and for languages you know better, to see how much discrepancy there is between the subtitles and the dialogue.
You choose your lovers based on their native-speaker status of languages other than your own. Extra points if they speak a language isolate or an endangered language.
You know how to calculate your language footprint.
... what else?

12 canoes

2008-09-08T17:09:00.002+09:30

News today of a new project from people at Ramingining and Rolf de Heer: a website called Twelve Canoes featuring 12 short films which 'cover topics such as the story of creation, first contact with white man, the seasons and plants and animals'. There are also music and image galleries on the site.

The production values are phenomenally high, and there are some other bonusses: the time bar for the videos is represented in a circle (!) and you can choose to listen to the films in either English or Yolngu. Many mak!

The Year of Languages Lecture in Melbourne

2008-08-15T08:36:00.000+09:30

A heads-up for interested types in Melbourne:

On Tuesday 19th August, at Monash University, Emeritus Professor Michael Clyne will be delivering The Year of Languages Lecture: "Australia's unrecognized resources boom -- Languages for Australia's future"

The overview from the webpage:
The number and range of languages employed in the homes of Australians -- and Melburnians -- continues to increase. Nevertheless, Australia must better develop its multilingual potential to promote dynamism and innovation. Professor Clyne will recommend how Australia can become a vital link nation between Europe, Asia and other parts of the world.

David Crystal on SMS text

2008-08-14T08:06:00.002+09:30

UK linguist David Crystal was on the Media Report on ABC Radio National this morning. He was interviewed on the *issue* of SMS text and "declining spelling and literacy".

I've never had much time for this as an *issue*, thinking it to be a beat up. Though, I'm not a school teacher. If I were, I may think differently on the matter. If it *were* an issue...

David Crystal says the criticisms of SMS text are unfounded, as the data do not reveal any link between SMS text and 'poor literacy'. Quite the opposite, in fact. Less than 10% acutally use abbreviations. Also, abbreviations are not new to text messages; they have been around for a long time, in some case for 100 years or more.

We've probably all heard the story of a student submitting a school essay written in SMS text? According to David Crystal, this is a myth. Talking with students and their teachers, he found that they had significant awareness of the difference between standard written English and SMS text abbreviations. For example, British students report they wouldn't use SMS text in school work.

These days, most text messages these days are written by adults, and in standard English text. School age kids writing texts is a good thing, according to Crystal, because they are practising reading and writing and ultimately (and perhaps ironically?) are improving their literacy. For example, they've worked out which part of a word you can leave out such that it is still comprehensible.

Crystal reports that literary uses of texting are also increasing, citing the oft-observed phenomenon that as soon as someone learns a mode of communication, they start playing with it. The UK paper The Guardian started an SMS poetry competition: a poem of no more than 160 characters, to be submitted by text message. Also, text novels are popular in China and Japan. The novelist sends chapters to readers phones. Chapters are 160 characters long, and are sent one by one each day until the novel is complete.

So, thanks to David Crystal, I can now dismiss the SMS text=illiteracy brouhaha, and instead sing the praises of such technologies when used in language revitalisation, e.g. the mobile phone Kaurna dictionary.

International Day of the World's Indigenous People

2008-08-11T17:02:00.002+09:30

August 9th was International Day of the World's Indigenous People. To mark the event, the HREOC Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, Tom Calma issued the following press release:

---

“The theme of this year’s International Day of the World's Indigenous People is the protection and promotion of the world’s endangered languages, which is especially relevant to Australia, whose Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages are under threat of extinction," Commissioner Calma said.

Speaking from the Garma Festival in Nhulunbuy, where cultural preservation is a major theme, Mr Calma said that the vast majority of Australia’s Indigenous languages have been eroded and some have been lost forever.

“When language is lost, knowledge and wisdom are lost, and so too is identity. It is through language that we interpret our belief systems; our religion, spirituality, knowledge of country and so much more.”

According to UNESCO, at least 3000 of the world’s 6000 languages are endangered, and at least 800 are very close to extinction. Commissioner Calma said that while Australia once had around 300 Indigenous languages, now there are only 20 or so not endangered.

“Indigenous languages can only be preserved through policies that commit governments to language maintenance and language revitalisation programs at all levels of Australia’s educational institutions,” Mr Calma said. “This means employing Indigenous language speakers in schools; supporting bilingual programs where they exist; creating benchmark testing options for Indigenous literacies; funding the development of Indigenous language texts, school books and picture dictionaries; and any other action that supports and strengthens Indigenous language literacy across Australia.

“Unfortunately, the preservation of Indigenous languages is considered a low priority when governments and others look to Indigenous disadvantage. But governments make a mistake if they ignore language and consider it a separate problem from health for example. While Indigenous people may be struggling with high levels of economic distress, poor health and poor education outcomes, it is our culture – transmitted through our languages - that defines us and gives us dignity and a sense of purpose.”

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Hear, hear!

Mythbustin'

2008-07-27T13:51:00.002+09:30

So the lecture has come and gone, and the students handled the 'true or false' statements pretty well. Instead of making them 'fess up their responses to the statements straight up (shame job!), I got them to discuss them in groups, then I gave an introductory lecture which addressed many of the propositions of the 'true or false' statements. Later on, with everyone now *knowing* the answers, we went through the statements again. I asked them to reflect on their initial thought processes, so I could get a sense of how much knowledge they had about Aboriginal languages coming into the class.

Here are the statements I gave them:

Aboriginal languages are primitive, and have no grammar.
Aboriginal languages are really dialects of the one language.
There were about 20 distinct languages in Australia upon first European contact, and now there are 8 which are still spoken.
There are two main groupings, or ‘families’, of Australian languages.
Aboriginal languages are harder to learn than English or Japanese, and that's one reason they have largely disappeared.
Aboriginal languages are still spoken today in every state and territory.
Kriol and Aboriginal English are spoken by more Aboriginal people than any traditional Aboriginal languages.
Aboriginal languages aren’t written languages, (and this has contributed many of them no longer being spoken).
Bilingual education in Aboriginal communities has failed because learning a traditional language prevents Aboriginal children from learning English.
Many Aboriginal languages are no longer spoken because they don’t have the vocabulary to cope with modern-world technology.
Aboriginal languages have no word for money.
Kriol is a ‘bastardised’ form of English, and is easily understood by an English speaker.

As expected, these 2nd/3rd year linguistics students were able to dismiss the 'Aboriginal languages have no grammar/are hard to learn' statements pretty quickly, as well as others for which I gave counter-evidence in the lecture (e.g. Dalabon has two words for money bad 'rock; money (coins)' and marlaworr-no 'leaves, money (notes)').

They found the statements about numbers of languages spoken, and degree and spread of 'still-spoken-ness' difficult before the lecture. We also had some good discussions about some of the double-proposition statements - like the influence of a writing system on language loss, and whether this is more relevant to language revitalisation than language shift/loss.

I also asked them to name as many Aboriginal languages as they could, and despite expecting that this would prove a near-impossible task, I was still surprised that only Pitjantjatjara and Arrernte made the grade.

If you're interested in trying your own hand at some mythbustin', try this site.

Back to (neo-)basics

2008-07-17T11:01:00.002+09:30

I've been struggling with the terms entail, implicate and infer lately. There's good empirical reason for this, and I hope to post on this at some stage. But for now, I'm going to go back to undergraduate semantics briefly, and try to re-learn a few basics. Please feel free to participate in my on-going education!

Despite remembering these terms from earlier study, I realised that my understanding of them was really pretty shaky when it came to actually needing to apply them, and distinguish between them.

With the trusty help of philosopher extraordinaire Bulanjdjan Maïa, I got to the point of:

An implicature is stronger than an inference. An implicature necessarily follows on logical grounds, while an inference can be derived by reasoning.

Which left me wondering, 'well, what's the difference between implicature and entailment?'

And in looking around for some clarity on the matter (= going back to old textbooks), I didn't find much illuminating material. For example, one textbook says:

Sometimes knowing the truth of one sentence entails or necessarily implies the truth of another sentence.

So, entailment = implicature?? Some further thinking on this got me to:

Perhaps implicature operates at the level of pragmatics, while entailment operates at the level of semantics?

Fortunately some good old Gricean know-how kicked in, courtesy of Michael Haugh's paper on The Intuitive Basis of Implicature. According to Grice (1967, 1989), there is conventional implicature, and conversational implicature. Conventional implicature operates at the semantic level, and entailment is a kind of conventional implicature. Conversational implicature operates at the pragmatic level, and can be defeased.

So that is where I rest my investigation of these terms (for my purposes) for now. However, I was struck by the use if the prefix neo- in Haugh's paper:

Most neo-Griceans have essentially retained this definition of implicature in subsequent developments of Gricean theory, so implicature has continued to be defined as what is communicated less what is said. The problem for the Gricean (and neo-Gricean) definition of implicature is that it encompasses far too large and diverse a range of phenomena.

I've never really understood the semantics of neo-, and perhaps because I'm all about semantic reflection at the moment, I gave it some deductive thought. Perhaps many of you are well comfortable with this little prefix and its denotations and connotations. It seems to be used by social commentators a lot, e.g. neo-christians, neo-conservatives etc. I've always had the impression that those particular examples referred to particularly fundamentalist versions of christianity or conservatism.

It seemed to me, from Haugh's use of the term, that it refers to a 'back-to-basics' approach or philosophy, perhaps after some considerable 'straying' over time from the origins of a movement or philosophy.

So I looked it up in the OED, and lo and behold, neo- is used when:

Forming compounds referring to a new, revived, or modified form of some doctrine, belief, practice, language, artistic style, etc., or designating those who advocate, adopt, or use it.

I think the use of revived is key in this definition, and are evident in some of the examples given in the entry:

The extracts we have given serve to show the dogmatic assertiveness of the Neo-Buddhist philosophy.

And just to tie it all back in to liguistics, this derived form was also listed:

neography n. a new system or method of writing or spelling.

Myths about Aboriginal Languages

2008-07-14T10:28:00.004+09:30

*Hypothetical* scenario:

You find yourself thrust in front of an undergraduate class on Aboriginal Languages. It's the first week of semester, so you take some time to go through the introductions and housekeeping, an overview of the course and some introductory content. But this won't cover the full two hours.

You'd like to run a class discussion exercise where the students are presented with a set of 'facts or myths?' on Aboriginal languages, and they have to decide which is true and which is false. What would you include??

"English is way better than Tiwi"

2008-06-17T10:41:00.004+09:30

Did anyone else watch Four Corners last night?

It was about poor English literacy standards and education in remote Indigenous communities, focussing on Nguiu on Bathurst Island. The elders there have decided to set up their own weekly boarding school on the island, to simultaneously address the issues of attendance at the local Two-Way school (which the report paints as a being due to a combination of lack of will on the students' part to attend, and disrupted home-life due to substance abuse and over-crowding) and the drop-out rate for those who go to away to boarding schools in Darwin or further afield. It is an English-only high school which is far away from the community itself, and students are required to sign a contract stating they will not bring drugs or alcohol to the campus.

For me, the saddest and most powerful part of the story was the children themselves saying how they didn't feel safe at home (especially when they weren't being led to such statements by the journalist, Sarah Ferguson), and that going to the boarding school was a welcome break from the chaos at home.

Equally affecting was the news that the boarding school is struggling to maintain attendance. The very mechanism set up to address non-attendance and dropping-out is itself unable to get over the first hurdle.

But, this is a language blog, and there were certainly some important language issues discussed in the story - though they were dealt with fairly lightly, and conclusions drawn fairly quickly, in my view. Bilingual education got this summary (from the transcript, all the teachers are from the local school, not the boarding school):

---

LEONARD FREEMAN, BILINGUAL TEACHER: You can’t write a language unless you can speak it. So by learning their first language they understand how to make meanings, how to construct sentences, then they transfer those skills to English.

SARAH FERGUSON: In recent years the whole issue of bilingual teaching has become a contentious debate in the culture wars.

PROFESSOR HELEN HUGHES, CENTRE FOR INDEPENDENT STUDIES: You have to make the children learn something. I mean, drop the separate curriculum. There is a sort of possum hunting curriculum. They’re supposed to be taught in local languages but none of the teachers who can teach can speak the local language, and those who can speak the local language can’t teach.

SARAH FERGUSON: But before the argument about bilingual teaching can be resolved the schools have a more pressing problem: getting the kids through the door.

SARAH FERGUSON (to Rodd Plummer): What is the biggest obstacle you face teaching in that classroom?

RODD PLUMMER: It's attendance. It's really significant. Those kids that actually come every day or, you know, four to five days a week, they’re the kids that are doing really well. And those kids that are not coming to school are the ones that are struggling.

---

Now, Jane Simpson has already taken on Helen Hughes, so we'll just take it as given that it is important for children to learn about basic concepts about literacy and numeracy in a language they understand, and leave Helen Hughes to the side. Rodd Plummer says that the good-attenders at the local school are achieving. It is their regular attendance which is the important contributing factor here, in spite of/as well as the bilingual program.

Somehow, the "learning Tiwi = not learning English (literacy)" mantra has taken hold and become the scapegoat for the poor education outcomes for students at Nguiu:

---

SARAH FERGUSON: After more than four decades of good intentions and bad outcomes in the schools, the Tiwi elders decided they had to act to save their children.

Their solution was to ask the former Federal government to build a boarding school on the Tiwi islands, but far away from Nguiu.

BERNARD TIPILOURA, TIWI EDUCATION BOARD: Because they would have good sleep, they would have three meals a day, they would have better teachers, qualified teachers to learn, and no bilingual, we said English only.

(and from one of the students at the boarding school:)

KEISHA VIGONA: I like Nguiu but I don’t like the schools. I was there for year seven but I didn’t learn a bit more because there was too much Tiwi. English is way better than Tiwi because you get to communicate to people, to white people, and to apply at job and all that.

---

I fear that the attendance issues already attested for the boarding school will mean that it will also struggle to achieve good literacy for its students. Only this time, there won't be a bilingual program to blame. And with attitudes like those of Keisha Vigona's, maybe there won't be much spoken Tiwi either.

Field sessions in review

2008-06-16T08:22:00.001+09:30

I love watching the Dalabon recordings we've made. They're pretty much all on video, so indeed I watch (as well as listen). Apart from all the wonderful language content, and material for analysis, I find looking at these recordings to be a really transporting experience. It takes me back to the session when we made the recording, and, more often than not, I realise more of what was going on in the interaction than I was cognisant of at the time. I also cringe a lot at

a) my laugh,
b) what I perceive as being inappropriate laughter on my part,
c) the poor timing of my questions (I often realise later in the watching that I've cut off a speaker just as they were about to say something probably highly insightful),
d) my language errors, and
e) poorly-thought-out elicitation strategies.

But what I like most about watching these recordings is the humour, and the human-ness of the interactions. Like just now I'm transcribing one, where I'd probably pushed the session longer than any of us could really cope with. It comes up in lots of improvised interactions which are about 'giving up' and being short tempered! These are met with rousing laughter each time :)

The length of the session also shows up in my contributions. The Dalabon expression for talking on the phone is:

Ngah-yang-birdihka fon
1sg>3-word-enter phone
'I'm speaking on the phone (lit. 'I'm entering my words into the phone')'

I tried to elicit a sentence to do with the use of demonstratives (modifying the nominal fon), and wasn't paying much attention to the rest of the sentence. I said:

Ngah-birdihk-iyan kanh fon
1sg>3-enter-FUT that phone
'(lit. 'I will enter that phone')'

LB patiently explained what I'd said - in a mock school teacher voice - and then tried to mime me taking to the person on the other end of the line from inside the phone! We all fell about laughing. Shortly afterwards we called it a day - and not a moment too soon!

Mock Hindi?

2008-06-06T08:17:00.006+09:30

Are the photos below an example of clever messaging, or a racist use of orthography?

Jane Hill writes about white racist use of Spanish (for example, in the States), particularly for humourous effect. She describes this use as racist (particularly when erroneous, e.g. No problemo (correct form: no problema)) as it relies on the hearer being able to recall racist stereotypes in order to find the use of language humorous. She calls this use of language Mock Spanish. I'm really interested in the version of this (Mock Kriol) which is often heard spoken by whitefellas in or around Aboriginal communities in Australia - especially the Kriol-speaking context I am familiar with.

But I digress. These photos are of ads in a Melbourne tram. They are part of a campaign to reduce fare evasion. They appeal to an understanding of karma, and are written in a roman font which approximates Devanagari. It also strikes me that the word order is also Mock Hindi, though I'm not an expert on Hindi word order. What do you think?

Update on The Linguists on DVD

2008-06-02T16:05:00.002+09:30

I received the following in response to an enquiry re: the availability and release of DVDs of the movie The Linguists.

Thank you so much for your continued interest in THE LINGUISTS (formerly called The Last Speakers). We are currently developing a distribution plan for the movie. My hope is that we’ll establish a US television broadcast date within the next few months, and that DVDs will be available for purchase by the end of 2008.

I will happily keep you posted as things progress.

Yours,
Seth

---
Seth Kramer
Ironbound Films, Inc.
PO Box 441
Garrison, New York 10524
Office (845) 424-3700
Cell (973) 615-3985
kramer@ironboundfilms.com
www.ironboundfilms.com

Note the shift from the original title The Last Speakers to The Linguists. Not only does that seem much more appropriate, given it is the linguists who appear to be the protagonists (i.e. it is a story about them and what they do, more than it is about the last speakers of the various languages they study), it seems to be a more-marketable title. Any thoughts?

Which language would that be?

2008-05-31T08:57:00.002+09:30

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

2008-05-30T13:48:00.006+09:30

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

2008-05-30T08:12:00.000+09:30

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

2008-05-29T15:48:00.003+09:30

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

Parse and discuss

2008-05-26T15:59:00.001+09:30

Tips on reducing your language footprint #2

2008-05-18T08:14:00.000+09:30

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

2008-05-17T07:51:00.001+09:30

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.

2008-05-16T07:40:00.000+09:30

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

2008-05-15T14:21:00.002+09:30

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?

2008-05-14T11:04:00.002+09:30

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

2008-05-14T07:54:00.001+09:30

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

2008-05-13T09:11:00.002+09:30

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

2008-05-13T07:52:00.000+09:30

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

2008-05-11T16:06:00.002+09:30

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

2008-05-11T13:24:00.007+09:30

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

2008-05-07T21:18:00.002+09:30

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

2008-05-07T08:18:00.002+09:30

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

2008-05-06T09:21:00.008+09:30

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

2008-05-05T20:22:00.002+09:30

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).

Language thrift

2008-04-30T16:53:00.002+09:30

Teaching students enrolled in a Batchelor Own Language Work certificate this week, I thought to use some of the teaching materials I had produced when working for the Katherine Language Centre a while back.

Opening the books for the students to practice reading, I was mortified to see a myriad of mistakes in the text: orthography mistakes, plain mis-transcriptions, use of intransitive pronominal prefixes with transitive verbs...

I began to doubt my credentials to teach *proper* orthography and grammar to these students, until I had the brilliant idea to get them to correct my mistakes! That I saw far more mistakes than they picked up reassured me somewhat that my credentials were still in place, and we had some good discussions about why my mistakes were in fact erroneous.

I was a bit confused though, when QB began to insist that some of the intransitive pronominal prefixes on transitive verbs were not just ok, but even preferred to the transitive versions. I couldn't grasp any semantic reason for this (as in the ambi-transitive verb dudjmu 'return' , or 'bring back' ). The verbs we were talking about were burridj 'dig', mamang 'collect', ngun 'eat.

Any takers on why/how these verbs could be rendered intransitive, when direct objects were lexically encoded? (One option I've considered is that QB might not be competent enough in Dalabon to discern, but I've had to throw out that excuse to dismiss inconvenient data before...)

The pitfalls of writing a PhD #1

2008-04-30T06:28:00.002+09:30

Being as yet an academic in training, it is not always the case that the best analysis is immediately apparent or evident to the aspiring PhD candidate.

It can happen that the most appropriate analysis is revealed, or becomes apparent, very late in the process of preparing a dissertation for submission. This requires substantial re-coding, re-counting and re-writing. The joy of discovery is tempered with the stress of presenting that discovery under great time-pressure.

In my case, I had an inkling that the recognitional demonstrative kanh was being used as a relative pronoun, but scant evidence of this, as the verb which would be in the relative clause often bore no subordinate marking. In instances where the verb was marked as subordinate, it is difficult to attribute the subordination to the presence of kanh.

On this trip however, checking this phenomenon, the speaker I've been working with consistently translated these tokens as relative pronouns, with subordinate relative clauses, regardless of the the presence or absence of subordinate marking on the verb. She also rejected alternative analyses for kanh I presented her with.

In addition, Evans (2003, Bininj Gun-Wok grammar) also describes the Bininj Gun-Wok recognitional demonstrative nawu as functioning as a relative pronoun, with or without subordinate marking on the verb.

It's not unusual for demonstratives to grammaticalize to relative pronouns either (c.f. Diessel 1999, Demonstratives: form, function and grammaticalization). So all in all, kanh as a relative pronoun is a highly reasonable analysis, in my view, even if it does mean a lot of work. *Sigh*.

The joys of working on endangered languages #2

2008-04-28T09:46:00.005+09:30

Sometimes it all just gels.

Usually when you need it to most, in my experience. It's like all the diversions and distractions tolerated in the past, favours given and unavailability accepted, accrue into one mighty dose of karma which delivers exactly what you need in just the right amount at just the right time. It helps too, if you're in a place where you can understand and appreciate what you're being given.

Recent field trips have been a series of disappointments, with speakers being unwell, or (too-)remotely located for me to work with them.

This being the last field trip before I submit my thesis, and having arrived with hypotheses to test, the stakes for me are high. As if knowing this (I haven't dared jinx myself by actually telling this to the speakers I *need* to work with), the most fantastic constellation of healthy, nearby-situated and willing speakers of Dalabon has consistently taken charge of making sure I get all the data I need - even foregoing a fishing trip to make sure we got through it all. And we've been recording heaps of other cool stuff as well, like shibboleth terms and phrases which index each clan, and phrases for saying 'I love you', and 'thank you'. More on these in another post.

And to top it all off, I'm surprised to discover my Dalabon is greatly improved - I've gotten to the 'barely conscious' stage of language use, where I'm not pre-planning and -parsing and overly-monitoring every utterance, and instead finding it remarkably easy to just let the words flow. (Of course, I doubt a linguist is ever 'not conscious' of language use, especially of one they're studying'!)

Can I buy you a djidjirdowk?

2008-04-28T09:30:00.004+09:30

Going over some older transcripts, I was delighted (again) to come across this gem of a metaphoric euphemism in Dalabon. (I may have even blogged about this before, but can't remember/find post...)

A djidjirdowk is a water-filled hump on a paperbark tree. To get at the water, you pierce the djidjirdowk and the water flows out of it.

MT was telling a story about some people who were drinking (alcohol), and made reference to djidjirdowk, which had me baffled until QB explained that she was talking about cask wine!

Yay for semantic innovation!

Hypothesis Season

2008-04-13T23:04:00.004+09:30

I think I have a workable hypothesis about the demonstratives and their spatial semantics and/or uses to test in my upcoming field trip. It involves far too many variables for me to be able to keep in my head all at once, but I think I’ve narrowed some uses and ‘semantics’ down to the following:

nunda
The referent is in the ‘here’ space

djakih
The referent is at the addressee or ‘there’. This form is composed of dja-kih (2sg-EMPH), so diachronically at least, we can postulate where it came from, and explain why (at least sometimes) is means ‘at the addressee’.

nunh
Turning attention to, contrasting. Referent is cognitively or emotionally ‘distant’. It can be used exophorically, but does not encode spatial semantics (e.g. location, distance).

kanh
The referent is assumed to be familiar to the addressee, the speaker thinks the addressee ‘can know’ the referent. This is the recognitional, which can be used exophorically, but does not encode spatial semantics (location, distance).

kanunh
The stressed form of kanh, this has a narrower distribution, apparently the same ‘semantics’ (is recognitional, can be used exophorically, but does not encode spatial semantics).

And of course, a few others for which I have no data (despite their being listed as demonstratives in the 2003 dictionary), others which are erroneously listed as demonstratives (but are adverbs, or are predicates productively derived from the demonstratives listed above).

On the importance of aged-care facilities in language endangerment

2008-04-13T11:03:00.002+09:30

All this discussion of speakers of endangered languages being old and frail and requiring institutionalization reminds me of a comment a dutch friend once made.

We were visiting a speaker at an aged-care facility in Katherine, and I was explaining to him that many of the people we work with are elderly and frail. He said 'So, this is like your library?'

Car-pooling in Kath-er-rine town

2008-04-11T10:37:00.002+09:30

Yay! Finally a long-needed service, and best of all, it's DIY. Some community-minded folk in Katherine have created a blog to put lift-providers and lift-seekers in touch with each other. Here's hoping it takes off.

The joys of working on endangered languages #1

2008-04-11T07:59:00.005+09:30

It is very useful to the opportunistic linguist when a consultant becomes too frail to live remotely and requires institutionalization in a regional centre.

Suddenly they are well cared for, well fed, relieved of the immediate demands of children and grandchildren, as well as being bored and lonely. The visiting linguist provides respectful company, intellectually stimulating engagement (aka annoying questions, to help stave of alzheimer's) as well as money and means to things outside the institution, in the event the consutant's family is not providing these.

For the linguist used to travelling great distances to work with speakers who may or may not be willing to commit to the time and tasks the linguist would ask of them, an institutionalized consultant in better health and with little to do is a rare opportunity, one to be milked for all it's worth (i.e. as long as the consultant will put up with you).

SD, a colleague from WA, points out that incarcerated consultants are just as much a wonderful opportunity as otherwise institutionalized consultants, especially as grog is removed from the equation.

Dust Echoes

2008-04-04T07:01:00.002+09:30

I've finally gotten around to checking out some more of the Dust Echoes clips. These are short animated films produced by the ABC in association with Djilpin Arts. The films are about traditional stories of the people who live in Beswick (Wugularr), and the production quality is very high. I highly recommend working your way through them.

The pitfalls of working on endangered languages #2

2008-04-01T17:21:00.000+09:30

When working with speakers to test the effect of visibility of the referent on demonstrative choice, it's probably best to not rely on the data collected with the nearly-blind old man.

bureaucrat vs public servant?

2008-04-01T06:57:00.002+09:30

I received some criticism for my use of the word bureaucrat in my previous post. According to this reviewer, the term is almost always pejorative, and as I wasn't intending to be pejorative, I shouldn't have used it, as it can cause offence.

I'm still not sure that I agree that the term is always pejorative, or dysphemistic, - it seems to be used neutrally in newspapaer articles, for instance (as well as pejoratively in the letters and op-ed pages!). Wikipedia disagrees, however.

The alternative would be public servant. Though for me, bureaucrat and public servant have slightly different connotations. Bureaucrats seem to have more power - be more engaged in policy writing etc. Whereas public servants seem more like the dogsbodies.

Anyway, good food for thought - and discussion, perhaps?

Interpreting, Intervening and The Intervention

2008-03-31T14:55:00.004+09:30

I think this opinion piece by Claire Smith is worth reading, as she discusses the issue of (lack of) use of interpreters by members of The Intervention task force. Though, I find myself agreeing more with Bob Durnan's comment (read the comments!) about her take on The Intervention per se, and take his point that Barunga Council informed the task force that they did not require interpreters.

At the commencement of the Intervention, I witnessed Barbara McCarthy briefing a group of women in Barunga on what they might expect from the arrival of The Intervention taskforce. She spoke mainly in Standard Australian English, with some Aboriginal English markers thrown in. Not Kriol. The women hung on her every word, and from my impression, understood all of what she said. They certainly asked questions relevant to what she had said. I came away thinking I had been underestimating the English competence of these women.

I think equally, or perhaps even more so than 'interpreters', actual education of what 'these big words' mean is most important. What Barbara McCarthy did was speak clearly and plainly, explaining her terms of reference. It was a great lesson for me. Having interpreters know what English words like 'implement' or 'quarantine' mean is something all together different from there being a ready Kriol equivalent, or straightforward explanatory phrase, which can be employed across the board in meetings with bureaucrats.

Secret's out

2008-03-26T12:09:00.002+09:30

People really care about language(s).

Witness:

Joseph lo Bianco's opinion piece in today's Age; yesterday's editorial in the Age; as well as lead topic in the letters section yesterday, with only letters in favour of the Federal Government's proposed push to increase/improve language study in schools being published.

'Course, it could just be Age readers who care. I couldn't find any mention of the government's proposal in cursory searches of The Australian and ABC news websites.

Pushy languages

2008-03-24T13:28:00.002+09:30

It seems to me that an oft-heard linguist's lament is 'No one cares about language! (At least, not minority or endangered languages, and let's not even start with the prescriptivists! Or those who confuse literacy and language competency.).'

But I think we might be wrong. I think people care, but maybe they care for the wrong reasons, or based on false assumptions. An example being this article in today's Age about the need for language skills to be taught in all Australian high schools. As well as all the important arguments for why Australian students should acquire LOTEs at school (and the reasons why they don't), it details several facts which made an impression on me:

- "Statistics show Australian students spend less time learning a language than students in any other OECD country."

- "The reports are basically saying that the study of languages other than English is the weakest part of the key learning areas in Australian schools, and they point to the fact that more than 85% of students who graduate from high school today do so without a language other than English."

I also recall a report released a year or three ago which apparently found that Australian high school students have one of the lowest rates of English literacy of all OECD countries. Maybe learning languages and literacy (even in your first language) are linked after all.

The reasons Australian students aren't learning languages at high school are apparently:

- lack of time in curriculum;
- languages are not perceived by parents or teachers as relevant for students' futures;
- language study is perceived to negatively affect ENTER scores;
- lack of qualified teachers (given all the above, is is any wonder there aren't enough Australians qualified to teach LOTEs at high school!).

So, we're a monolingual nation riding high on the supremacy of English globally - a nation doesn't care about learning foreign languages or even achieving English literacy. Only, the article I'm citing above is the 5th most viewed article today on the Age online. And I'm sure we're all aware of the heat any discussion about English literacy generates, especially wrt to Indigenous education.

Why so much interest in language, yet so much grief about language? High school students won't/can't learn LOTEs; Indigenous students are barely allowed and rarely supported to learn their own languages; adults full of their own cultural cringes and inadequacies bequeathing these as well as uninformed 'beliefs' about languages and literacy to the next generation. I'm sure Michael Clyne deals with it in his wonderful book Australia's Language Potential (as he also does in this article, via Jane Simpson at Transient Languages ant Cultures), but it's been a while since I read it, and don't have it at hand. (Am I just another example of someone mouthing off in this debate without fully preparing their point of view? Hmm.)

I guess my point is there's hope. The federal government is making another move towards increasing, improving and standardising LOTE study in schools, and people are interested. However, the report the Age article is based on identifies that 'episodic' interest and support for LOTEs in schools is of itself a major issue in attracting language teachers and students. Maybe this will be taken into account with the current planning.

On a related issue, consider signing this petition in support of compulsory Indigenous Studies in all Australian schools. Watching news reports about the apology to the Stolen Generations, I was really moved and inspired by stories about school classes which had been doing units of study about the issue in the lead up to the apology. The students spoke articulately and with such compassion about the issue that again the reading on my hope-meter soared. I left school 14 years ago and I cannot ever imagine being taught about Indigenous issues with honesty and respect for the subject matter. What a phenomenal change.

The pitfalls of working on endangered languages #1

2008-03-16T10:05:00.002+09:30

Elderly speakers are not often in good health.

Note to self: this can impair the execution of certain elicitation tasks. When making recordings designed to elicit deictic gestures, it's probably not empirically sound to work with the speaker who's suffered two strokes and has difficulty moving the right side of their body...

Facebook reanalysis

2008-02-27T14:55:00.005+09:30

A friend who works as a ministerial advisor in the Victorian Parliament had the following status update today:

HC wishes she had have stayed in bed today.

This seems to be reanalysed from '(woul)d have', but I can't get a 'would have' reading is this syntactic context. The only appropriate syntax I can muster is HC wishes she had stayed in bed today.

So, reanalysis plus a case of Monday-itis on a Tuesday?

Update:
The Brits use if I had have known, apparently. I want to *correct* this to would have known, but somehow would doesn't fit semantically, though if I'd've known seems perfectly fine. What's the d in I'd've then?

Statussing

2008-02-25T11:55:00.004+09:30

bulanjdjan is making wild speculations about grammaticalisation. Are we allowed to use diachrony to explain synchrony yet?

bulanjdjan is transcribing a domestic she started by suggesting her research participants discuss whether the mobile phone is in credit...

bulanjdjan regrets upgrading to Leopard without realising she wouldn't be able to run Classic apps like Shoebox. She's in a technology void: hasn't got/can't afford an Intel Mac to run Toolbox in Windows, can no longer run Shoebox on the G4. Advice via apple.com is to partition her hard drive into Tiger and Leopard, but she's still in too much denial to follow through. And what about the files she wants to be able to use in both OSs? And is it really fair to expect her to be so technologically sophisticated?

bulanjdjan is extremely jealous of the commencing PhD student she recently met who is going to be working on a description of her partner's East Timorese language. Oh for a consultant at home!

bulanjdjan is really proud of Kevin Rudd for the genuine and emotionally mature apology delivered in Parliament to the stolen generations, and hopeful that Australia may finally be growing up.

More interpreters in WA

2008-02-22T12:36:00.004+09:30

ABC news online is reporting the WA Premier is (still) committed to increasing the number of Indigenous interpreters available.

This seems like such an overwhelming task - I've always admired those involved in interpreter education and training. All the basics like using the same person reference (say 'I think' not 'S/he thinks'), observe confidentiality, remain impartial etc seem straightforward enough. But teaching someone to understand and interpret medical and legal jargon seems a phenomenal task. I guess it seems all the more so cos I have very little competence in these.

And interpreters aside, the difficulty of translating medical/legal jargon into plain English, or an Indigenous lingua franca such as Kriol, or Yolngu Matha makes me wonder how Indigenous health or legal workers come to feel confident in their fields. Do they just come to understand and use the English terms without necessarily trying to find a translation? In Why Warriors Lay Down and Die Richard Trudgen suggests that Yolngu health workers use English terms like bacteria, have been trained to recognise symptoms, how to rule out other possible causes, and know which course of treatment to recommend, without knowing what bacteria actually are. (I may be overstating this a little - it's a while since I read it.) I think Trudgen makes this point to justify and explain why education of health workers must necessarily focus on high quality language (and jargon-specific) training, and how this may be done. Still, the task intimidates me.

I'm a bit naive about this - do others know of where this may already be being done?

2008-02-06T16:25:00.000+09:30

The day after Australia Day, the The Age newspaper had an article about phrases which are particular to Australian English, apparently. Suppose looking at oneself from outside the fishbowl is meritous on the day after Australia Day.

I was surprised to read that some of the list below were exclusive to Strine. I’m not sure of their source, and probably have some reason to be suspicious, given they cite Fiona Cox (sic) on phonetic features of Strine. The article mentions an edition of The Australian National Dictionary, due to be published late 2009, but doesn’t state that this list comes from that volume.

Anyhoo, here’s the ‘data’:

Public servant (c.f. civil servant elsewhere, the first public servants were convicts)
Light globe (all the other Englishes only have light bulb)
Economic Rationalism (The UK had Thatcherism and the US had Reganism)
Enterprise bargaining (collective industrial relations negotiations)
Salary sacrifice (apportioning part of one’s salary to be received as car/credit ard/mortgage payments etc, so as to reduce the gross amount of taxable income)
Streaker’s defence (It seemed like a good idea at the time (I had to google this cos I had no idea what it meant!))
Minimum chips (the minimum serve of chips one can order at a takeaway fish-and-chip/BBQ chicken shop, mmm, survived on these at boarding school!)
Grey Nomad (retired person who travels extensively)
Flat white (a latte served in a cup and saucer, same size as a cappuccino cup, not one of those soup-bowl sized cups kiwis serve their lattes in)
Short black (a single-shot espresso)
Scrunchie (a fabric-covered elastic hair tie)
Silver beet (apparently called a Swiss chard in other Englishes)
I didn’t come down in the last shower (Don’t take me for a fool, for the non-SAE readers.)

I wonder about a few of these – and would welcome some input from speakers of other English dialects. Does NZ English share any of these with us, such as light globe and economic rationalism (was Rogernomics economic rationalism, or something all unto itself?)?

Does the exclusivity of enterprise bargaining and salary sacrifice entail that these are not practised elsewhere, or just not labelled the same? Peter Austin has written about the cross-dialectal minefield that is industrial relations.

I’m sure I’ve heard the word scrunchie around the English-speaking world, not least in an episode of Sex and the City - is this possibly even an Aussie export? Maybe it’s wiser to trace the spread of the item itself – does it have alternative names?

Are we really the only nation to refer to retired travellers as grey nomads? Are the less-positively-evaluated terms (e.g. SAD ‘See Australia and Die) also exclusive? Speakers of other dialects: bring forth your terms!

I didn’t come down in the last shower gave me a bit of a giggle: surely the impact of that one is wearing off given the long period between showers in drought-ridden south-eastern Oz!

2008-02-05T16:47:00.000+09:30

Seeing the show has got me a bit down about how endangered Dalabon is.

The show was a wonderful reminder and example of how rich and interesting Aboriginal languages and cultures are and how relevant their knowledge is to a broad church, regardless of your stand point.

But I could also see how old and weak these men are becoming, and I also know how little of their language knowledge has been stored in the next generation.

I’ve also just realised that since I started the major part of my PhD fieldwork in May 2006, four Dalabon speakers have passed away. I’d recorded three of them.

One old lady I’d just learnt of in May 2006. She was being kept alive by renal dialysis. We happened to visit her on a non-treatment day, which meant it was good timing to record her. She told us her life story gently. She passed away a week or two later.

One old man I’d known of for some time, had heard many wonderful things said about his kind and generous nature. But somehow I’d never found the reason to sit down with him before my PhD. So in May 2006 I did, but in the intervening years his ability to remain present, and in particular, recall Dalabon was severely diminshed. He wandered off into the bush in 2007 and hasn’t been seen since.

Another old man I first heard of in 2006, had been keeping researchers on their toes for years with plenty of insights into his world, not to mention demands for tobacco! He lived on the Arnhem Land plateau and PhD funding from ELDP meant I could afford to charter a plane up to see him. We had a Dalabon workshop at Kabulwarnamyo and made several precious recordings. I learnt last year he had untreatable leukemia. The visiting singers in Melbourne just told me he’s now passed away.

While in Kabulwarnamyo in 2006, I was told of a Dalabon speaker from Maningrida I hadn’t yet heard of. The first I knew of her was that she had just passed away.

To my knowledge, there are five remaining fluent speakers of Dalabon. They’re all elderly and in declining health. There’s a number of older recordings which as yet, have not been transcribed, translated and interpreted1. The urgency of doing this while the remaining speakers are still alive, as well as mining from them as many other corpus gaps we can identify at this point in time, is weighing on me at the moment. A lot.

1 By this I mean adding all the encyclopedic information which allows the unfamilar listener/reader to understand cultural references – to the degree an outsider/uninitiated person may be permitted to understand them at least.

The show was incredible

2008-02-01T07:35:00.000+09:30

Just magical. A crowd of soft-leftie Melburnians who had all either lived the NT Experience, or just fantasized about it, waited in twilight on picnic rugs in the Botanical Gardens. Just sitting in the audience was a throwback to outdoor performances in Katherine, with adored kids running all over the place, while well-educated and earthy adults said familiar and warm hellos. There were even flying foxes overhead. And this show ran on NT time: it started at least half an hour late.

Tom E. Lewis began by setting the scene, talking about the country, the animals, and the spirits. The singers were clearly nervous. They looked fabulous in black pants, black shoes, black long-sleeved business shirts and different coloured ties. It took a while for each of the four old men (Roy Ashley, Mickey Hall, Victor Hood and Jimmy Wesan) to be escorted onto the stage, find a seat and to ensure they each had a microphone. There were a few awkward numbers with a pianist playing Bach while the old men sang. None of this seemed to help the old men relax on stage. And the audience, desperate to feel connected to the old men, to let them know they were welcome, were also shy.

The switch in accompanist from pianist to cellist, and the later addition of Ross Hannaford on electric guitar, allowed the night to really get underway. Tom E. Lewis joined in later on accoustic guitar. For it was this musicial combination which made sense, and you could tell the old singers knew it too. Suddenly they knew their cues, and thus encouraged, even dared to say “Hello Melbourne! We like it here!” to the audience. The audience, thus encouraged, dared to clap and whistle and cheer. A rapport was allowed to develop.

And then there began some gorgeous Kriol banter on stage: the performers talking in front of the audience about what to play next, and who would lead was simultaneously so outrageously “unprofessional” and yet unselfconsciously authentic. And incredibly endearing to those in the audience who would recognise this ‘authentic’ manner of performing. And hysterical for those of us who could understand the Kriol: one utterance I caught out of context was “I owe you $100!”

The end of the first half coincided with the City of Melbourne Australia Day fireworks. If we suspected we were witnessing magic, it was now confirmed with the sky full of champagne and pink and green and red and white and noises, ancient and new.

The second half began with a world premiere screening of the film clip for Wark Wark ([wakwak], ‘crow’, yes I have issues about the spelling), a song off the CD-to-go-with-the-performance Muyngarnbi. The film clip featured young boys dancing in the bush, in both traditional and contemporary styles, often a mix of the two. Chooky dancers eat your hearts out – the film clip and song were both fantastic! Professional and authentic.

In the second half all of the performers had truly found their stride, with Mickey Hall regularly jumping up from his seat to wave at the audience and cry “Hello Melbourne!”, and talking over the top of the singing and the music to tell the story of the song. Roy Ashley was also filling out his rockstar boots: singing solos and daring to tell the audience he didn’t want to leave Melbourne! (That one got loud cheers – flattery will get you anywhere, Roy!)

All the audience were moving to the familar jazz beats and nodding their heads to the rythym of the singing. Such a treat, so gratefully received.

The ugly side of whitefellas adoring Aboriginal people (or any tradition they don’t fully understand, I suspect) came out after the show when fans mobbed the old men to tell them how ‘spiritual’ they were. Several audience members had bought CDs and were asking the old men to sign them. Most of them are only just literate enough to write their own names, and feel some shame about this – especially with strangers. One is nearly blind and couldn’t see well at all, especially given it was evening. He explained to the woman asking that he couldn’t see, but she insisted that he try. Then others followed her lead, and poor Jimmy did what he was asked, for the sake of a souvenir. In any new friendship, it takes a while to get the boundaries in the right place, I suppose.

But importantly, the concert was amazing, and I’m saving up to get me one of those un-signed CDs.

Arnhem Land in Melbourne

2008-01-25T15:48:00.000+09:30

It's probably too-late notice for most, but just in case you're in Melbourne and don't have plans for Australia Day night (tomorrow), there's a gig on at the Royal Botanical Gardens called Shakespeare and the Songmen from Arnhem Land.

Jimmy Wesan, a senior Dalabon man, is one of the performers and personally I'm just hugely excited he's in Melbourne! Going to try and sneak me some Dalabon time!!

Free rice for your ego

2007-12-13T16:35:00.001+09:30

I've come upon the coolest linguistics-type-nerd time waster: Free Rice. (One eventually moves on from Facebook...)

You're presented with a *difficult* English word, and asked to correctly identify its meaning from a list of four possibilities. For every word you get right, Free Rice donates 20 grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Program (WFP).

In about 20 min, I donated 500 grains of rice, and got to a vocabulary level of 38, mainly by making some good guesses based on latinate and germanic cognates. Free Rice says "There are 50 levels in all, but it is rare for people to get above level 48." There's a challenge: go to it!

Facebooking

2007-12-10T17:20:00.000+09:30

In tribute to the fact that I am no longer able to construct full posts because of the effect of spending too much time on Facebook, I present the 'status update' post*.

bulanjdjan is back from a short field trip and still ruminating on the effects of literacy (any literacy, not necessarily L1 or EL** literacy) in language documentation. Well, more specifically, helping her come to understand language forms and sentences. Literate speakers seem to get 'it' more. Maybe something about literate speakers having 'externalised' language by virtue of coming to 'see' language, and to have had to learn 'rules' in order to be able to apply the orthography, and so coming to awareness that language is rule-governed...

bulanjdjan is reflecting that she should really read some Walter Ong (or anyone else readers care to recommend?) before speculating about the effects of literacy on oral cultures and their language awareness...

bulanjdjan is fretting because *no* version of ELAN will open .eaf files (ELAN transcription files) on her PowerBook G4. Why is it that when you imperatively need an application, it goes on holidays?

bulanjdjan is trying to ignore her research wish-list and focus on the writing task at hand, namely chapter drafts...

bulanjdjan is thinking 'know your data, know your data, know your data'.

bulanjdjan is wondering if she's started murmuring thesis extracts in her sleep?

bulanjdjan is totally into phonetics and phonology again after OzPhon. Well, she was always into it, but has just been living elsewhere for a while.

*It occurs to me that Facebook is to blogging what SMS is to email/other forms of 'whole-word-form' written communication. It creates a shorthand (status updates) which 'suffices'.

** EL = 'endangered languages'. L1 may refer to a lingua franca (e.g. Kriol) rather than an endangered language like Dalabon.

Yolngu Zorba the Greek

2007-11-07T12:41:00.000+09:30

I think this has already been doing the email/blogging/YouTube loop, and I'd ignored it until just today. But it's riveting!

The Sounds of Aus

2007-11-07T11:55:00.000+09:30

Tomorrow night sees the premiere of The Sounds of Aus, an 'entertaining documentary' about the origin, use and socio-politics of Australian accents.

It's hosted by John Clarke, who is intelligent as well as funny, so here's hoping. I wonder if his being a kiwi will lend some insights/slurs?

They claim to have interviewed linguists (among others), so it might even be somewhat factual. Though after listening to some promo discussion on RRR this morning, where the 'fact' that Australians have lazy tongues was discussed, I will hold onto my reservations about the accuracy of reporting on human language in the media.

I'll be watching nonetheless. If it's bad, I'll get some ~~whingeing~~ posting mileage out of it at least!

Steven Pinker on RN

2007-10-29T15:21:00.000+09:30

Today's All in the Mind program featured an interview with Steven Pinker, who is promoting his new book 'The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature'.

Impressed by a journalist!

2007-10-27T14:56:00.000+09:30

Yes, this is newsworthy!

Having complained loudly and often about the representation of Aboriginal languages in mainstream discourse, particularly the media, I will grant credit where it's due.

As reported below, Lofty Bardayal Nadjamerrek's exhibition opened recently in Melbourne. In today's Age, Martin Flanagan reviewed the work and interviewed the artists. He gets full marks for:

1. naming the language spoken by the artists;
2. spelling it correctly;
3. spelling the artists' names correctly;
4. naming the country Lofty is from;
5. spelling the name of the country correctly;
6. consistently spelling language words and names correctly (i.e. no variation in spelling); and
7. identifying and then appropriately adopting a Kunwinjkuan naming and referring practice:

""The old man's happy all the pictures are up together," said his son-in-law, Gabriel Maralngurra. "So are his grandsons." I asked one of the grandsons, Maath Maralngurra, which of the paintings in the exhibition was the most important to him. "The old man's," he said. I noticed in our subsequent conversation no one referred to the old man by name. He's the old man." (my bolding)

That each of the above points is remarkable enough to list is commentary enough.

Australianist linguist bloggers post regularly on representation of Aboriginal people in the media.

It occurs to me that as well as complaining to the newspapers etc, we could advocate for positive reinforcement of appropriate representation, such as the GLAAD awards. It would be great to see a section of the Deadlys dedicated to acknowledging and commending journalists and other public commentators who in their work fairly and accurately represent indigenous Australians.

Lofty Bardayal Nadjamerrek in Melbourne

2007-10-15T10:05:00.000+09:30

Tomorrow night, Tues 16th, is the opening of a show of Lofty Bardayal Nadjamerrek's paintings in Melbourne.

Lofty, AO, is the main attraction, and his children and grandchildren are also exhibiting in this show, which has 'generational change' as its theme.

The man is a living legend, renowned for his cultural knowledge and artistic practice - not to mention being a speaker of many Bininj Gun-Wok dialects as well as Dangbon (an alternative name for Dalabon), and probably several other languages.

If you're in Melbourne tomorrow night, the opening is at The Mossenson Gallery in Collingwood, at 6pm.

On whose terms??

2007-10-12T13:38:00.000+09:30

WHY does John bloody Howard always get to set the agenda wrt Indigenous affairs and symbolism in this country? I'd've thought Reconciliation was a collective activity, defined and agreed upon creatively by as many who choose to participate. Not. One. Single. White. Ungracious. Power-corrupted. Man.

One, as we well know, who is prone to tokenism and careful manipulation of emotive issues to suit his political advantage. The election can't come soon enough.

If, like me, you need distraction from your frustration, I suggest you try the The Cambridge Online Survey of World Englishes. (Thanks to Nora for bringing it to my attention.)

Breaking bread

2007-10-08T14:38:00.000+09:30

I made the mistake on the weekend of offering a taste of my delicious flourless orange cake to an Aboriginal friend far too early. Everything is timing, I am reminded. And sharing food is quite culturally specific.

I can't say I think of myself as terribly au fait when it comes to the sharing of food in Aboriginal societies (being a gluten-free vegetarian tends to preclude me from participant observation...), but what I have noticed is that people tend to eat a portion of whatever food, and when they've had enough/decided they've had their share, pass it on to whomever they are 'sharing' with. The recipient then eats their share in turn, and may pass it on further.

I know that carving up of game, for example, is often highly hierarchically determined, usually according to kinship, where the game was caught, who caught it etc, but I'm not sure what 'rules' apply when it comes to sharing a pie from the shop.

I guess the Anglo food-sharing script is more like 'both partake at the same time (e.g. if eating a bag of chips, or a single piece of cake) or divide at the outset then both eat (now) separate portions at the same time.'

And it's usually considered to be polite to offer to share one's food at the very beginning of the act of consuming it. So much so, that one should offer one's companion the first chip from a newly-opened packet.

So I was having a cuppa in a cafe with my Aboriginal friend. She had ordered a friand, and I had my flourless orange cake. One bite of my cake and I was in heaven! It was SO good! I had to share this bliss *immediately*! So I did, by offering the plate in her direction for her to fork off a mouthful. Only she took the plate, placed it squarely in *her space* - assuming, I guess, that I was *done* - took a bite, obviously thought it was much better than the friand because she went for the rest of the orange cake with gusto!!

Meanwhile I was chastising myself for forgetting culturally-relative food-sharing etiquette - more so because it had cost me my orange cake, rather than because I thought I should have been a *better* host!

So I decided to completely compromise both of us and our respective notions of polite food-sharing by reaching across into her space and helping myself to forkfulls of the cake!! Whatever uncomfortablity it caused us both was worth it - the cake was SO good!!

Where am I?

2007-10-05T11:56:00.000+09:30

Request for help today.

I've been 'not getting around' to creating an electronic map representing the area where I work/Dalabon traditional country/current locations of Dalabon speakers.

Reason for delay being my *knowing* that is can be done through Google Earth, but me forgetting the interlinks which beat a path to a set of instructions. I think one of the blogs linked to from Transient Languages and Cultures spells it out? Can anyone provide either advice or directions to instructions?

Oh, and if anyone happens to know the extent of traditional Dalabon/Ngalkbon country, I'd be most grateful to hear about it! It's apparently a bit controversial...

ILC and ALS

2007-10-03T11:55:00.001+09:30

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!

Vegemite Man-me

2007-10-02T23:05:00.000+09:30

Just finished watching the 2007 Deadlys, and was greatly amused to hear Nabarlek Band's version of 'I come from a land down under' and the key lyric vegemite sandwich being changed to vegemite man-me!

Nabarlek band come from Manmoyi, an outstation on the Arnhem Land plateau. They sing in Kunwinjku (which took a considerable amount of time to find on the web, given most online articles describe how they sing in a 'tribal/traditional language').

Back to the data at hand. Man-me is made up of the vegetable noun class prefix man and me '(vegetable) food', so 'vegetable food'. Manmoyi, the placename, is another example of the same vegetable noun class prefix (man), this time with moyi 'green plum'.

So, anyway, I was amused to hear them singing about vegemite man-me. I was significantly less than amused to sit all the way through the awarding of best male actor, best male sportsman etc categories, only to see all the equivalent female categories rushed through in an montage/wrap-up edit at the end. Not a single shot of the winners, let alone an acceptance speech!

And I didn't notice any awards given for achievement in language. Perhaps because all the likely nominees were at ILC last week...

Wanna look cool beyond ALS 2007?

2007-09-03T22:12:00.000+09:30

I'm currently printing t-shirts to look like this:

If you want one, bring a shirt to ILC/ALS and give it to me and I'll eventually print it and send it to you.

UPDATE (5/9/07)
I can do different colours, but these will be mixed from primary red, yellow and blue, so the less fancy the better! White and black (how appropriate!) are also on offer. And the newer the shirt the better - new fabric takes up the ink better than older, worn fabric. I'm not asking for cash for the printing, but do please give me a self-addressed and postage-paid package to return your shirt to you.

Hear, hear.

2007-09-01T15:18:00.000+09:30

Noongar on Lingua Franca this week.

word-PL-PRIV

2007-08-24T15:38:00.001+09:30

And then there were none...

2007-07-27T11:40:00.000+09:30

The 'last' fluent speaker of Jawoyn passed away early this week. She was from Barunga and Francesca Merlan had worked with her intensively in the past.

Bobala.

Wamut has written about what it means to call a language 'extinct', and he describes a fair bit of use of Ngandi, despite there no longer being any living 'fluent' speakers.

In the case of Jawoyn however, there hasn't been much language use or activity for a number of years. I think there are a number of people who could speak it fairly well, but they don't do so often.

Bobala jet langguj.

Bugger! I told you so!

2007-07-17T12:48:00.000+09:30

Transcribing some of my just-recorded sessions, I've found electronic interference in several of my video recordings. Bugger. I've always preached that one should record while wearing headphones to monitor audio quality inter alia. As soon as I start to get a bit overconfident, I get bitten on the bum. May my mistake have greater significance than me alone having to learn this lesson. Again!

Aborigines may have mountain, but do not have own correct name

2007-07-13T14:55:00.000+09:30

Yet more evidence of journalists with orthographic incompetency.

Bobala jet Kurrama mob.

NITV is here!

2007-07-13T13:58:00.000+09:30

NITV has been launched.

And they're looking for high quality content. Team up with your local film-maker now to get producing shows in language!

And has anyone been watching The Circuit on SBS on Sunday nights? I thought the first show last Sunday was excellent. Better than RAN.

Permits and land takeover

2007-07-09T11:26:00.000+09:30

An article here on NT govt and NLC protests about the Federal Government's proposals to abolish permits and take over township leases.

Manic Inertia

2007-07-09T09:46:00.000+09:30

My mind and heart are working so hard to process "it all." I don't even know what to call "it." The Intervention? The Howard-Brough Reforms? The Crisis?

In any case, much of what comes inarticulately to mind, has already been better-said elsewhere. By Jane, by Jenny, by wamut and by Jangari. And I notice (with great relief!) Sophie giving herself permission to Just. State. It.

There are two contributing factors to how I find myself sitting with all of "it." The first is that there are so many reactions to have, hence the mania. Celebration that *something* is finally being done. That *finally* there might be significant resources flowing in to communitites. Horror that those resources are apparently, at first glance, being delivered by the army and with complete lack of dignity, compassion, respect and collaboration. And with every likelihood of further disempowering Aboriginal people and bulldozing all pre-existing community driven efforts to address their own problems. Efforts which have not received consistent or effective support from the Federal government. I'm also confounded by proposals to take over township leases and abolish the permit system, and how these are supposed to address child sexual abuse? I know I'm not the first to ask for this to be made explicit, or to suspect that this is purely Howard creating a political opportunity to take over Aboriginal land. The ABC's Stateline (NT) asked Brough on Friday, after he had visited Muitjulu, to explain the link between addressing child abuse and changes to the government's proposals to resume township leases and abolish permits. I highly recommend reading the transcript of the interview, because I don't think Brough answers a single question.

Which leads me to the second factor contributing to my state of being: the utter lack of detail or consistency about what is actually being proposed, how it will be delivered and how long "it" will be sustained for. Hence the inertia. I've been trying to write letters to politicians, the media etc. And I find that I. Just. Can't. Formulate. A. Position. (Jenny also said as much.) Watching it all unfold is somewhat addictive too. I'm in this pasive state of receiving, needing my next hit.

And what's unfolding is the government's own confusion about what they will be delivering, and how, and for how long. We've gone from 'the army will roll in to deliver to law and order' to 'we will be sending in survey teams to talk with communities about what they need and want.' From compulsory health checks to 'voluntary health checks unless parents do not voluntarily present their children.' From 'this is a six month intervention' to 'this is a long term commitment.' From 'welfare payments for Aboriginal people will be conditional upon child school attendance' to 'welfare payments may become universally conditional, not just according to the colour of the skin of the recipient.' It *appears* as though the government is susceptible to changing its plan a) in the face of unrelenting criticism and b) as it actually works out what may or may not be acceptable/appropriate/workable.

But. (And it's a big 'but.') While we see this apparent flexibility with some of these proposals, I haven't seen (and don't expect to see) any flexibility on the permits and assumption of leases proposals. We're all to be fooled into thinking that the government is open to negotiation and is flexible etc on all the other proposals, and is acting altruistically to *save* Indigenous people (after waiting 11 years).

I was in Bulman and Weemol last week. A majority of the people I spoke to hadn't even heard about the proposals. And I struggled to explain the findings of the report, let alone the goverment's proposals. The proposals to link welfare payments to children's school attendance was welcomed though, as was the partial quarantining of welfare payments for food and other 'essentials.' Banning alcohol and extra policing to enforce that ban were also welcomed. But we really got stuck on permits and the taking over of leases. And I hear that there is no ICC budget to use interpreters when survey teams travel to communities to start talking about the proposals. I also hear that the ICC management in Katherine do not believe there will be a need for interpreters travel with the survey teams.

So in a round about way we come back to language. And the recommendations of the Children are Sacred report, and the government's plan to get kids to go to school. It's already been said that if all the kids in remote communities actually attended school everyday, there will not be enough classrooms and teachers to cope. One imagines (hopes?) that the government would respond to this best-case scenario of high attendance by providing funding and properly supporting teachers and bigger and better school buildings. Sounds like a Shared Responsibility Agreement? Gillian Cowlishaw has this to say on AASNet:

"If parents are to be forced to send their children to school on pain of losing their welfare money, perhaps a mutual obligation can be instituted whereby the teachers and education department will be held responsible if they fail to impart reading and numeracy skills. For whatever reason, or excuse, the education department seems unable to train and equip either Aboriginal or white teachers sufficiently well. Teaching in a remote community is surely a difficult job, but teachers are paid to teach children and they should not continue to be paid for work they cannot do."

I see a few things to hope for in this scenario: If kids are going to school and the schools and teachers are properly funded, a) the kids might get some good education and b) the parents as a community have some lobbying power to say 'we want culturally inclusive schools.' Also, if the kids are going to school, and as in the scenario Gillian describes, they are still not *achieving* then the responsibillity falls back on the education department to re-examine their methodologies, and with any luck, realise the importance of first language and cultural inclusivity in education. Who me? An Idealist?

Oh my goodness...

2007-06-21T19:00:00.000+09:30

First, the children are sacred report came out.

Then, one of those engaged in the researching and writing of the report emailed all of his contacts, saying 'the report's findings are being hijacked by the media and politicians with agendas, please read the whole thing.' His email started circulating and I got it from two different people.

Then, today we hear this and this, and this. And it looks like the worried emailer was right.

Jane Simpson says it brilliantly thus:

"The Government has focussed on the detail and ignored many of the recommendations of the report. Instead today Howard has seized the opportunity of justifable public outrage at the sexual abuse of children to bundle together some good measures with a whole lot of measures which have nothing to with child abuse or what causes it, but which will give the Government much greater control over Aboriginal land and Aboriginal lives."

I strongly recommend the rest of her post, where she details some of the report's recommendations that relate specifically to language and education.

And even Brough acknowledges the importance of local languages, though from his point of view, only for the purposes of control:

"We are prepared to stand by and have the military forces of this country be able to provide their logistics, their vehicles, their communications and their language skills of members of the Indigenous parts of our defence forces support the men and women of the Australian police forces in their duty," he said. (from ABC news)

Crikey has an interesting story here, actually based on reading and anaylsing the report.

Local languages protect children from sexual abuse

2007-06-19T14:56:00.000+09:30

Ok, it's a long bow to draw, but the NT govt has just released a report entitled Inquiry into the Protection of Aboriginal Children from Sexual Abuse, and here is its first recommendation:

---

Education
Education is the key to helping children and communities foster safe, well adjusted families. School is the way to keep future generations of Aboriginal children safe. Getting children to school every day is essential because:

- children are safe when they are at school
- school is a venue for educating children about child sexual abuse and protective behaviours
-education provides opportunity, empowerment and achievement and offers a way to overcome the social and economic problems which contribute to violence
-children can confide in their teachers.

The Inquiry urged the government to improve Aboriginal education systems, including local language development, to make education more effective for Aboriginal children.

---

(my bolding)

The NT government (well, the Inquiry) *gets* that local language development (whatever that means... let's hope not 'forced English literacy') is a key factor in an education that 'provides opportunity, empowerment and achievement.' Even if Mal Brough doesn't.

Of course, whether these translations actually develop into any material support for Indgenous languages in the NT (including policy!!) remains to be seen. Clare Martin, Chief Minister said in a media release:

"I commit the Government to implementing the key action areas of this report and getting on with the job of tackling this deeply disturbing issue. The report makes it perfectly clear that the NT Government, the Federal Government and Aboriginal Communities must work together to achieve change. ... I will table the report in Parliament next week and the Government will provide its full response to the report in the August Sittings of Parliament. ... Many of the recommendations build on work being undertaken by the NT Government – in particular, measures to tackle alcohol and substance abuse, and improved education. ... We have Aboriginal children in remote communities graduating from secondary school for the first time, but more needs to be done and we will do it."

(my bolding)

There is no information available at present regarding avenues for public responses to the Inquiry's report.

Kriol Baibul launch photos

2007-06-14T15:12:00.000+09:30

Courtesy of David Nash, this link to the Flying Bible Man's photos! If you go to his homepage, there's more info on his mission: "the Flying BibleMan uses an aircraft to service the scripture needs of Australia’s ‘Top End’." bulbul was keen to find out how to purchase a copy of the Holi Baibul, and while it's not obvious to me from the Flying Bible Man's site how to do so, maybe there's some more leads to follow, bulbul? Good luck!

(Juicier posts coming soon, I promise!)

Hear, hear!

2007-05-28T10:30:00.000+09:30

Sigh, sigh.

NSW language grants and Nash's policy page

2007-05-05T12:17:00.000+09:30

From ILAT (and also at anggarrgoon):

Aboriginal community organisations can apply for one-off grants worth up to $25,000 to protect and teach Aboriginal languages.

Minister for Aboriginal Affairs Paul Lynch said for Aboriginal people, language is a direct link to their identity, land and country, reflecting their unique way of looking at the world.

Applications for close on Friday, May 25. For more information or to get an application form visit www.alrrc.nsw.gov.au or call 9219 0700.

http://www.alrrc.nsw.gov.au/

---

And from David Nash, a webpage compiling lots of official stuff on language policies for Australian languages.

Sign of the times?

2007-05-03T17:08:00.000+09:30

On a rare rainy day in Melbourne, I overheard two 9 (?) year old girls on their bikes making up sing-song songs:

Rain rain, come this way,
Don't let the sun get in your way!

Rain rain, come again tomorrow,
We need the water!

Indeed!

I heart Radio National (again)

2007-05-03T11:30:00.000+09:30

Tonight, on RN, The Media report has a story on the launch of National Indigenous Television. I missed it this morning, so don't have any comment yet. You can listen to it tonight at 7pm on the wireless, or online here. (And as I learnt yesterday, you can get Windows Media Player for Macs.)

And how sad the situation in the NT with the MacArthur River mine.

Heads up, heads down

2007-05-02T12:18:00.000+09:30

On Radio National this morning, The Religion Report interviewed Margaret Micken about the launch of the Kriol Baibul, the first full translation of the Bible into an Australian Indigenous language. Read the transcript or listen to the interview here.

I wanted to rant about how they misspelt Ngukurr (as Nukul) and Barunga (as Burrunga) but, they had a disclaimer up:

This transcript was typed from a recording of the program. The ABC cannot guarantee its complete accuracy because of the possibility of mishearing and occasional difficulty in identifying speakers.

Damn!

Very curious: the word drimin 'dreaming' is used to refer to 'idols or false gods'. Stephen Crittendon steers from there to ask Margaret Micken to what extent the translation/philosophy of the missionaries involved is motivated by a want for Aboriginal people to condemn and abandon traditional beliefs and practices. She handles it fairly well.

So anyway, it's a big weekend for Katherine-ites! The dilemma: Morrow Farm Christian convention for the launch of the Kriol Baibul, or the Country Music Muster?!

Languages languish in schools

2007-04-17T17:12:00.000+09:30

Stole the heading from an Age article (plagarism seems to be my new thing...), reporting on the release of a draft report from the Australian Council of State School Organisations (ACSSO). There's another article in the Age about it as well. (You may find you need a Fairfax media log in to see one or more of these.)

The articles, and I guess, the report (though it's not to be found on ACSSO's site) make the usual economic rationalist arguments why people aren't learning languages ("Everyone speaks English now, so why bother") as well as why they should ("Our relationships with China and Indonesia are important").

Interestingly, the articles note that the lack of skilled language teachers as an issue in providing language classes - let alone coordinating them so a kid can continue studying a language commenced at primary school once they enter high school - but that this teacher shortage has been identified for at least 11 years.

The articles strongly link ideology and support for language study in schools:

FOREIGN language teaching in schools has been neglected over the past decade as Federal Government rhetoric about Australian values and the "downgrading of multiculturalism" have turned the nation more inward...

... through a focus on Australian values and culture, the primacy of learning English and emphasising the assimilation of new arrivals as opposed to the ideals of multiculturalism," the report said.

"It comes as no surprise that many in the population think that learning English is sufficient for the children of today."

Unfortunately, it really doesn't come as a surprise at all. More like a sigh of defeat.

But maybe I'm being dramatic. The report was based on an online survey of parents and students. In one section, "17 per cent of students and 56 per cent of parents said it was not particularly useful to learn a foreign language because English was now widely spoken around the world." Interesting the disparity: students seem to be less convinced about the uselessness of language study than their parents, but it doesn't paint a picture of healthy home support for language students. And when you consider that extra-curricular activities like language-study-abroad programs in France, Germany, Japan etc seem to be prerequisites for continuation of language study at university, and how a high school student would need parental support (= money to foot the expense of OS travel!) to go on these trips, it all starts to look a bit hard without mum and dad really 'getting' the importance of language study.

Meanwhile, my serial flirtation with language learning (and language tourism!) continues unabated. I'm taking votes: should I go for Hindi or Tibetan next?

National Indigenous TV set for launch

2007-04-17T12:25:00.000+09:30

Via ILAT comes this article from eureka street about the May launch of an Australian National Indigenous TV service. I don't seem to be able to find a 'National Indigenous TV' website, though in my searching I've found that it seems to be a product of DCITA's Backing Indigenous Ability initiative, which I profiled here.

To get to the article about the launch, I found you have to log on to eureka street, so I've copied the article in full below in case you don't want to have to go though that rigmorale. (Hey, it was good enough for Phil Cash Cash!) But one section of particular relevance to Indigneous languages is the following:

"Children's programming is a high priority, as is promoting and retaining Indigenous languages, one of which dies each year. The issue of language revival is so critical that the Board includes a representative of the national body for community-based Indigenous language programs."

Great! Um, what 'national body for community-based Indigenous language programs'? Do they mean FATSIL? If so, it's sloppy journalism to not have included the name of the 'national body'. But maybe there's some other reference I'm not getting here. Anyone?

I've also included here a link to another article (no logon required!) I found by Ellie Rennie (CCI Research Fellow at Swinburne's Institute for Social Research), which provides some historical background and interesting comment on the new broadcasting 'service', such as:

"We only need to look at the success stories in Indigenous dance and fine art to know that Indigenous media may be our best bet in the development of a viable and sustainable Australian screen industry. A nationally available service is vitally important, not only to serve Indigenous people living in the cities, but to raise awareness and interest amongst non-Indigenous Australians. Such a service should not come at the expense of the local and developmental Indigenous television services which have evolved – largely in spite of government policy and at the community level – over the past 25 years."

Eureka Street article promised above:

----
National Indigenous TV set for launch

17-Apr-2007
By Jan Forrester

Pat Turner - National Indigenous TV
The National Indigenous Television service will go to air in just two months, fulfilling a long-held dream. Inaugural broadcasts will be transmitted to a potential audience of 220,000 scattered over remote areas of the Northern Territory, South Australia, Queensland and western New South Wales. These will be carried on the second satellite channel of Indigenous run and Alice Springs based commercial broadcaster Imparja.

But will the NITV service live up to its working name and reach beyond remote Australia? For the management team recruited to run the new broadcaster it is a case of start small and grow step by step.

The broadcaster's new Chief Executive is Pat Turner (pictured), an Arrernte woman from Alice Springs with an enviable 28-year track record in the federal public service. This includes roles as deputy secretary in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Centrelink deputy CEO and Chief Executive of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission.

She was on the verge of retirement in Alice Springs when the job came up. At her first press conference in Sydney as CEO she confessed "I was really intrigued once I understood what was involved in this initiative and I thought, 'Well there's a challenge.' Indigenous Australians have advocated for a distinct Indigenous television service for over 25 years."

It is an astute appointment by the inaugural Board given the negotiations needed with the Federal government to ensure the new broadcaster's continuation.

In late 2006 Communications Minister Helen Coonan allocated $48.5 million to be spread over four years for the establishment of a National Indigenous television service. It is unclear what will happen to funding after four years.

However, Pat Turner is grateful that Minister Coonan has championed the service's establishment and cannot wait to showcase Indigenous programming, raising it from almost invisible current levels. "For Indigenous Australians, particularly our children, we do not see Indigenous faces on the screen. And the stories we do see are framed by news values of conflict
and negativity."

Another crucial appointment is that of Paul Remati as NITV?s Director of Television. Remati's most recent position in a 25-year career was as Head of Television at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School.

"Our mission for NITV is to celebrate and reflect the richness and diversity of Indigenous Australian cultures and deliver innovative, entertaining content to audiences throughout Australia and around the world," Remati said at his first public appearance in the role.

The new broadcaster wants to do this through acquiring and commissioning content from the expanding numbers of Indigenous industry creatives. Children's programming is a high priority, as is promoting and retaining Indigenous languages, one of which dies each year. The issue of language revival is so critical that the Board includes a representative of the national body for community-based Indigenous language programs.

Beyond the four-year funding issue key questions remain about Federal government policy on Indigenous TV: Remati is reported to have told the recent Australian International Documentary conference that "We've been told that we're not a broadcaster, but a content aggregator."

National Indigenous TV set for mid-year launchDuring the service's implementation phase this was a regular refrain from Canberra, begging the question of whether the service will ever be funded to deliver a full service rather than merely produce programming for other television broadcasters or content distributors. SBS experience confirms that discrete Indigenous programming attracts few national advertisers. Getting more Indigenous programming on television screens, and attracting Indigenous and non-Indigenous viewers, requires an Indigenous version of a full service as happens in other countries.

Across the Tasman, two-year old Maori TV broadcasts to four-fifths of New Zealand's population of four million via UHF and the entire country via the digital platform. It was attracting an average of around 400,000 viewers a month as of April 2006.

Then there is the issue of network branding. The Federal government insisted that the Service's initial transmission should be via Imparja's second satellite channel. The Federal government underwrites Imparja and this move may be seen as offering a bang for taxpayers' dollars. However, it creates difficulties for the new broadcaster in initially differentiating its service from its well-established distributor.

Having said all that I'll be celebrating when the new service goes to air, even though I won't be able to see it until it jumps on to platforms I can access in the big smoke.
----

Australian Postgraduate Linguistics Conference?

2007-03-27T09:32:00.000+09:30

In comments on the previous post, Sophie suggests a postgrad conference for (Australian) linguistics students.

Jessica Denniss, currently the postgrad rep for ALS, replied:

"I think the idea of an Australian Linguistics Postgrad Conference is a great one. Last year I presented at the University of Melbourne's postgrad conference and found it to be a great way to ease into conference presenting and to develop a paper that was up to standard. But as you mentioned, it doesn't focus exclusively on linguistics, so I think there is definitely a place for a committed linguistis conference.

Perhaps if we can develop the idea a bit further, I can pass it on the the ALS exec, and see what they have to say."

So, what do people think? Melbourne Uni used to have one, but it's now a School of Languages-wide affair. I think they also publish a proceedings volume.

Sophie reckons having a conference would be great for the experience of organising a conference, and Jessica points out the opportunity to get some presenting practice before a (I assume!) friendlier crowd.

It certainly seems as though there's so much going on with Linguistics and Applied Linguistics in Australia (and NZ) that there'd be demand from people wanting to present.

Issues/Things to think about (as I see them!!)
1. Would enough people want/be able to afford to present at both a postgrad conference AND ALS/ALAA?

2. Are there a number of students who don't yet want to/feel ready to present at ALS/ALAA who would definitely go to a postgrad conference instead?

3. Where?! When?! How to get money, etc?! I asked a few admin people here at Monash, and they have to ask others, so it's not obvious.

4. (Fill in this blank in the comments!!)

Blackwood by the Beach

2007-03-20T12:28:00.000+09:30

I just wrote a rambling post about my various reflections about last weekend's Blackwood by the Beach Australian Language Workshop, but bloody Blogger ate it. And now I don't really feel like writing it all out again. Point form will do:

- it was really humid
- quite a few historical papers
- quite a few phonetics/phonology/intonation papers
- would be good to hear more language maintenance methodology papers. John Giacon's gave me food for thought. ILC might be the forum to hear more.
- Pat McConvell began a discussion about responding to Noel Pearson's opinion piece. An ALS email list might be the place to continue this?
- including a quick reminding definition or two at the beginning of some specialist papers would have made it easier for me (who is rusty on some areas of linguistic analysis!) to get more out of some papers.
- I can say this to myself as much as anyone.
- Hywel Stoakes' paper was a great exception to this, though I'm not really sure about (?) spectral tilt...
- I'm really bored with Qantas staff calling me Sir. It happened three times on my way home.

naf na