Jane Simpson

Why archive – Interview with AIATSIS collection staff

5 February 201123 October 2010 by Jane Simpson

Stateline has a good interview (and transcript) with various staff of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies [thanks Sarah!]. It’s about the audio visual archive and you can hear snippets of recordings, and also hear about the problems with machinery going obsolescent..and the importance of metadata… AIATSIS (misspelled ‘IATSIS’ alas in … Read more

Solo Han – the Empire strikes back

5 February 201119 October 2010 by Jane Simpson

“A regulation will stipulate that the family names comes first before the given names when spelling using the Chinese phonetic alphabet, said Li Yuming, deputy director of the State Language Commission, according to the Beijing News on Monday.” [People’s Daily Online] So, Li Yuming, rather than Yuming Li. My Chinese students have usually politely reversed … Read more

Small languages NOT being looked after

5 February 201114 October 2010 by Jane Simpson

In a recent blogpost I mentioned the decline of Cook Island Māori and Niue. I later learned that there had been some support for the use of these in schools – in 2007 the then NZ Education Minister Steve Maharey announced guidelines for using Niue in early childhood education in NZ schools, joining other Pasifika … Read more

Small languages flourishing (2) – Íslenska

6 February 20116 October 2010 by Jane Simpson

Ísland: Iceland
Population: around 313,000

For the traveller to Iceland, the first sign of clever marketing of Íslenska (we speak English but think about what else we speak!) is in the Icelandair aeroplane, in which Icelandic is used for

announcements
briefing cards
on the seat antimacassars, Icelandic phrases and commentary e.g. on the ‘soft and cuddly sound’ of Góða nótt ‘good night’ [check the cuddly claim here].
and on the paper cups, 14 words for drinking vessels

[ Photo courtesy of David Nash]

Surely the smallest language group to have its own airline.

In Reykjavík, there are plenty of signs of belief in the power of writing. Despite its location on the route between several big English-speaking countries, it has managed to resist much of the pressure to advertise in English and have signs in English. For print-addicts, the city language-scape is a treasure-house – vocabulary is reinforced by seeing words in other languages in signs and notices both public (roads, schools, monuments) and private (shop and business names and windows, advertisements, churches, graveyards). And hey! vanity plates using Icelandic diacritics [Gróa was a witch healer in Norse mythology].

GRÓA.jpg

[ Photo courtesy of David Nash]

Cyber-space is also sparkling with .is pages in Icelandic for enterprises, commerical, public and sociable – even the knit cafes get mentioned.. (see Handprjónasamband Íslands (the Hand-knitting association of Iceland). BUT the website for the parent airline group appears in English and doesn’t advertise an Icelandic alternative. Uhuh. Commercial decisions are probably the coal-mine canaries for language health.

We went into several bookshops (Eymundsson and Mál og Menning) with cafés. It is impressive how much is written in Icelandic, and how much is translated (check out Forlagið). It’s wide-ranging – from Richard Dawkins on God (a big display) to translations of Finn Family Moomintroll, Astrid Lindgren and Harry Potter, to Bill Bryson, to a whole heap of airport reads (John Grisham, Jodie Picoult, Charlaine Harris). All this with a small population, and having to import paper.

All of this must be helping standardise ways of talking about new ideas, so expanding the domains in which it is easy to talk Icelandic. The Berlitz guidebook to Reykjavík shamed its parent company by sniffily commenting on the Icelanders’ ‘pedantic’ habit of compounding Icelandic roots to form words for new concepts. But does that reflect the views of outsiders complaining about Icelanders not using loanwords, or the frustration of some at the language purism of others? Anyway I am sorry now that I didn’t check how ‘vampire’ was translated, let alone ‘true blood’.

Small languages kinda flourishing

5 February 201124 September 2010 by Jane Simpson

This post began in the auditorium of Diehtosiida, the new, beautiful and ultra well-equipped building in Guovdageaidnu/Kautokeino, Norway, which houses Sámi allaskuvla, the Sámi University College, as well as other Sámi institutions, including Gáldu, the Resource Centre for Rights of Indigenous Peoples. As we entered the auditorium for the first Indigenous Placenames Conference, we encountered a rack of Bosch handsets and headsets for simultaneous interpreting, and this was offered in Sámi, Russian and English. And they weren’t for show – most introductions and some papers were given in (Northern) Sámi. Sámi people who spoke near-native English could, and did, give their papers in Sámi. Interpreters are at hand because of the Sámi University College – but because Diehtosiida houses other institutions, this probably increases the uptake on using interpreters, which in turn reduces the pressure to switch to a more dominant language, and widens the domains of use of Sámi.

Way to go! Where would we find that in Australia? Ah, but the price of the people and the equipment! Not even on offer at Trinity St David, the otherwise well-equipped and strongly Welsh branch of the University of Wales where the Foundation for Endangered Languages has just held its annual conference. Around 20,000 (?euros – ~~Irish pounds~~ thanks Peter!) for 3 days of simultaneous interpreting at a conference in Galway, said an Irish linguist. That’s the financial pressure that forces speakers of small languages to give their papers in a lingua franca. But… at the FEL conference I learned from a representative of the Mentrau Iaith (Welsh Language Initiatives) that schools and community meetings can rent the equipment cheaply, and that often a bilingual parent or community member does the interpreting. They do it because they want to be able to use the minority language freely, not because they couldn’t conduct the meeting in English. So it isn’t best practice interpreting – but it is a choice between this and nothing – and nothing inevitably means using the dominant language.

Two important ideas came up at the FEL conference: the tipping point when bilingual speakers move to the majority language, and the conflict between authenticity and creativity.

More threatened losses

5 February 201122 September 2010 by Jane Simpson

Niue And Cook Island Māori Languages Threatened So runs the headline in Voxy, reporting the work of John McCaffery and Judy Taligalu McFall-McCaffery of the University of Auckland. “Our research indicates that Pacific Island languages in New Zealand show significant signs of language shift and loss, with several languages, especially Cook Island Māori and Niue … Read more

Snowflakes – Indigenous place-names

5 February 201115 September 2010 by Jane Simpson

Last week in Guovdageaidnu/Kautokeino, Norway, at the Sámi allaskuvla, the Sámi University College, was the first International Conference on Indigenous Place Names – “Exploring ways to reclaim cultural identity through place names” , beautifully, minutely and intricately organised by Kaisa Rautio Helander. The name ‘Guovdageaidnu/KautoKeino’ illustrates the range of the topic:

meaning: in Sámi Guovda ‘what is in between’, Geaidnu ‘road’; in Norwegian, Kautokeino is a name only
layering: Kautokeino is the Finnish spelling, now adopted by Norwegians
official naming policy: which name to use officially, which name comes first on road-signs

In the spring, a single snowflake melts, joins other snowflakes, becomes a trickle, a stream, a river, a sea – this metaphor with many interpretations is the heart of a poem by an early twentieth century Sámi writer, Pedar Jalvi which Kaisa recited at the start of the conference. You could use it for place-names – one Indigenous place-name on a map doesn’t convincingly show prior occupation/ownership, but thousands do. Or you could take it for this first conference itself – a river of understanding formed from trickles of people from different places – Māori, Zulu, Xaayda Gwaay.yaay (Haida Gwaii), Masai, Shipibo-Konibo, and particularly the Arctic (Sámi, Inuit, Nenets and Veps). They all have reasons to be passionately concerned about the nature, recognition and transmission of place-names.

Indigenous education in the NT – 2010 style

5 February 201129 August 2010 by Jane Simpson

If you are interested in Indigenous education in Australia or what happens when Governments get worried about minority groups not reading and writing the dominant language, check out Prioritising Literacy and Numeracy: A strategy to improve literacy and numeracy outcomes 2010-2012. Darwin: Northern Territory Government Department of Education and Training. There are some good things in it, but there are some worrying things. Take this paragraph:
“The language and cognitive skills domain includes basic literacy; basic numeracy; interest in literacy, numeracy and memory; and advanced literacy. The percentage of Northern Territory children vulnerable and at risk in the Language and cognitive skills domain at the commencement of full-time schooling is significantly greater than the national average, as indicated below.” (p.6)
Now it may be that the NT has lots of children from all backgrounds who are at risk. But I bet this is code for “Indigenous children”. Looking further – what is literacy? Literacy=English literacy. How are the cognitive skills tested? Almost certainly in English. This calls into question the reliability of the information on which this claim is made.
A lot of people in the NT are worried about the NT Government’s approach to Indigenous education – Australian Society for Indigenous Languages (AuSIL) , Association of Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, NT branch (ATESOL NT) , Uniting Church in Australia, Northern Synod, Darwin Anglican Church of Australia, Diocese of the Northern Territory, Darwin and the Top End Linguistics Circle (TELC). They’ve got together to sponsor a seminar. So, if you’re in Darwin on Thursday 9 September, hop along to Indigenous languages in education Do current policies match our needs?
7:30pm, Thursday, 9 September 2010
Mal Nairn Auditorium,
Charles Darwin University,
Casuarina Campus
Contact: Phil Glasgow, 8931-3133

Another life gone – wiyarrpa

5 February 201110 August 2010 by Jane Simpson

It was sad and moving to read in the Tennant and District Times (Vol.33 No. 26 23 July 2010 p.8), of the tribute concert for the Alekarenge/Ali Curung singer and songmaker, B. Murphy of Band Nomadic, who recently died in Adelaide. Too young. Their most recent album Freedom Road [1] has been shortlisted for the … Read more

Book launch for new grammar of Australian language

5 February 201129 July 2010 by Jane Simpson

Another grammar of an Australian language is to be launched: Amanda Lissarague’s grammar and dictionary of Gathang (see 2008 blog-post on launch of other books published by the ever-productive Muurrbay and Many Rivers Language Centre).