Australian Linguistics – Page 7 – Endangered Languages and Cultures

Wikid plug

5 February 201115 November 2007 by admin

Recently Jangari proudly told me that his Wikipedia page on Wagiman was ranked as “good” by wikimedia. Well they got that right. Check it out, it’s fantastic. Good on you Mali. Give the man a PhD scholarship! He’s clearly ready for big things.

European Australianists Workshop 2007

5 February 201129 October 2007 by admin

On Saturday 27th October the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics Nijmegen hosted a European Australianists workshop, organised by Ruth Singer, post-doctoral fellow at the Radboud University. The workshop was attended by about 15 people and had a packed programme of nine talks from 9am to 6pm. Unfortunately, I had to leave in the early afternoon to catch a flight back to London and missed some of the later presentations.

New wiki on Australian Indigenous languages

5 February 20115 October 2007 by Jane Simpson

A new wiki has been set up: Sharing Aboriginal language. Longterm it’s for general discussion “for all Aboriginal language people to work together, share ideas, develop exchanges programmes, discuss language matters and be able to contact each other quickly”. But most immediately the current discussion is on recommendations for Australian government policy on Indigenous Languages … Read more

Us and them are we

5 February 201127 July 2007 by Jane Simpson

Noel Pearson sets up a deliberately provocative contrast between ‘we‘ (Indigenous Australians and good guys) and ‘they‘ (‘middle-class culture producer’s and bad guys) in The Australian (21/7/07).

* They say we should respect Aboriginal English as a real language.
* We say we should speak our traditional languages and the Queen’s English fluently.

False contrast.

Nameless named

5 February 201116 July 2007 by Jane Simpson

A nice reversal: Mount Nameless has got its name back. The Western Australian Government has adopted dual naming guidelines. (The good people of the Geographic Names Boards. Hurrah hurrah!) The Shire of Ashburton agreed to the mountain being called both Mount Nameless (apparently this name was bestowed by a Hamersley Iron survey team in the early 1960s), and Jarndunmunha, the name used by the Eastern Guruma people. (The people are also known as Kurrama*).
[Further update, you can see a picture of Jarndunmunha/Mount Nameless and more discussion at
Filipiniana & Cunning Linguistics.]
[ further to further update, Piers Kelly has sent a photo of the long long view from the top [.jpg]]
The Western Australian Lands Minister, Michelle Roberts, is quoted as saying:
“There are probably hundreds of traditional Aboriginal names, virtually unknown by the general community, for features such as mountains, lakes and rivers that currently have a well-known European name.”
‘Hundreds’? Wrong ball-park.

Thaynakwith people’s dictionary

5 February 201130 June 2007 by Jane Simpson

The only fluent speaker of the Thaynakwith people’s language, Dr Thanakupi Gloria Fletcher, has just produced a dictionary “that includes the traditional stories, songs and art of the Thaynakwith people” of western Cape York, with the help of other community members, and Bruce Sommer and Geoff Wharton. It was praised by Peter Beattie – wonderful to see a major government figure interested in Indigenous languages.

Indigenous Languages Strand – LingFest 2008 – Call for expressions of interest

5 February 201114 June 2007 by Jane Simpson

LingFest 2008 will be held at the University of Sydney, Australia, 1 – 13 July 2008. LingFest is a series of linguistics conferences and the Winter Linguistics Institute.
In conjunction with LingFest 2008 , the Indigenous Languages Strand will run between 7 – 11 July 2008. It will be held at the Koori Centre of the University of Sydney. The Indigenous Languages Strand will be a useful forum for a wide range of people working in the area of the revival and maintenance of Australian Indigenous languages.
More details follow, or download the form for expressions of interest here – deadline Friday August 24.

Lewis O’Brien’s biography

5 February 20116 June 2007 by Jane Simpson

Lewis O’Brien continues to be one of the mainstays of Kaurna Warra Pintyandi, the Kaurna language movement. There’s a favourable review in the Sydney Morning Herald of a book about him And the clock struck thirteen – assembled by the linguist Mary-Anne Gale from conversations and archival research. Nothing on the language in the review … Read more

Ngapartji Ngapartji curriculum review

5 February 20116 May 2007 by Jane Simpson

I posted a while back about the very interesting Ngapartji Ngapartji Pitjantjatjara course. Here’s their call for some feedback. WANTED: Linguist, teacher, linguistics student or curriculum expert to review, critique and provide constructive feedback on structure, content and flow of Ngapartji Ngapartji online Pitjantjatjara language and culture site. http://ninti.ngapartji.org Please contact alex AT ngapartji.org for … Read more

Modern ways for ancient words

5 February 201126 April 2007 by Nick Thieberger

This forum was held in Newcastle, Australia, 24-26 April 2007, coordinated by the Awarbukarl Cultural Resource Association (ACRA). Subtitled ‘Modern ways for ancient words’, it was organised by Daryn McKenny and his team (including Dianna Newman and Faith Baisden) who put together two and a half days of presentations on the state of ICT in Indigenous language (IL) programs. The forum had a number of sponsors, testament to Daryn’s ability to pull in support from various quarters, including DCITA, Telstra, Microsoft among others.
Representatives of language programs and language centres came from far and wide, including Townsville, Cairns, Port Hedland, Kalgoorlie, Bourke, Adelaide, Nambucca Heads, Sydney, Melbourne, Walgett, the Kimberley and New Zealand. We were given lots of information over the two days that I was there (I missed the last morning) and I’ll try to summarise it here. Apologies to anyone I’ve left out.