The present Australian government’s approach to coordinating and delivering (funding for) general services to Indigenous people has failed on its first trial. That’s the conclusion drawn in an article on a leaked report by Bill Gray (Chris Graham and Brian Johnstone in the National Indigenous Times). So, what happens about coordinating and delivering money for maintaining and documenting Indigenous languages in Australia? How much is spent? Does more go on documenting than on maintaining and supporting education? I got asked these questions the other day, and had to admit surprised ignorance. (Hey, I SHOULD know. I’m a tax-payer). Here’s a start on answering – based on web-trawling.. and maybe some readers can add to it – help, is there an econo-statistician handy?
Linguistics
FollowPapuanists’ Workshop Wrap-up
In spite of a few early setbacks – including the workshop venue being eaten by termites – the Pearl Beach Papuanists’ Workshop, or perhaps I should say the Itinerant Papuanists’ Workshop, was held last weekend.
Everyone had something interesting to say at the workshop. We heard from a range of people from SIL field linguists to PhD students to professors. The weekend was filled with intensive (and exhausting) discussion of many different aspects of Papuan languages and linguistics. Our exhaustion was kept at bay, however, by the New Guinea Fair Trade coffee that Tom so thoughtfully provided.
Paper work in the Western Desert
The making of contemporary Aboriginal learning and literacy: Ngaanyatjarra engagement with changing western practices was a seminar given by Inge Kral today at the Centre for Aboriginal Policy Research. The seminar raised questions about reading and writing practices in Indigenous communities, and about the survival of small Indigenous communities faced with increasing demands from governments for paper work.
Blog catcher: Africa, America, Australia, art, language, literacy, software, travel
Sociolingo’s Africa is a general blog which includes posts about languages (the writer’s based in Mali but draws together material from across Africa). There are some interesting posts on linguistics, literacy – including mother tongue language education. So much seems so familiar. Thanks to this blog I’ve learned about Litcam, Google, and UNESCO’s Institute for … Read more
Fifth East Nusantara Conference: CALL FOR PAPERS
from the website: In the past, four International Conferences for East Nusantara Linguistics have been held; three in Leiden (1998, 2001, 2005), and one at the ANU in Canberra (2000). With this fifth conference the location moves to Indonesia, and more specifically to the East Nusantara region. Also, the focus of the conference has been … Read more
Language of poetry and song: CALL FOR PAPERS
We don’t know very much about the language of songs and poetry in many of the small societies in our region, so it’s excellent that a group of researchers (Myf Turpin, Christina Eira, Tonya Stebbins and Stephen Morey) are putting on a workshop on the topic at the Australian Linguistics Society Conference 2007 in Adelaide, September 26-28. Here’s the information:
Ngapartji-Ngapartji online course in Pitjantjatjara
It’s been very hard for ordinary city-dwelling Australians (i.e. most of us) to learn Indigenous Australian languages. Most universities don’t teach them, and getting to Alice Springs for courses at the Institute for Aboriginal Development is out of most people’s reach. Summer schools, such as the Gumbaynggirr and Gamilaraay ones mentioned in a previous post are rare. So it had to come, and it has, but in a rather unusual way. The first public online course in an Australian Indigenous language is run out of a demountable building in Alice Springs by the Ngapartji Ngapartji group. Trevor Jamieson and his family want to tell the story of how they, some of the Spinifex people, were forced to leave their lands during the missile testing in the 1950s and 1960s. They do this at arts festivals, using Pitjantjatjara, English, songs and dance. And they run an on-line language program, so that future audiences can understand the Pitjantjatjara talk in their performances.
Pearl Beach Papuanists’ Workshop Update
We were very worried when we were told the other day that the Crommelin Field Station at Pearl Beach – where we were going to hold the Papuanists’ Workshop – had suffered an attack from killer termites and had been declared unsafe (although it will be repaired by next year). This meant that our workshop … Read more
Sustainable Data from Digital Fieldwork Conference
Our December conference is almost full, so if you were thinking of coming along, now is the time to register! The preliminary schedule is up, papers have been reviewed, everything is going along nicely (touch wood). The third day of the conference is a workshop, with sections on audio and video recording, transcribing and managing … Read more
Sand talk – and how to record it
In Central Australia, you often see Aboriginal people sitting on the ground, talking, and simultaneously drawing on the sand, smoothing it over when they’ve finished a point, and starting again. They might be recounting places along a journey, listing family members, drawing maps, or describing the movement of characters in a story. I’ll call this ‘sand talk’.