Skip to main content

Re-entering white society

I’ve had a big and interesting week. The biggest thing that happened was that S arrived to take over my post at Ngukurr Language Centre for the next three months. That means that time is swiftly approaching for me to be out of here, have my holiday and re-enter white society for a while.

It’s been good having S here. It’s kinda re-invigorated me a bit. Having S take over also means that I can have my holiday with a clear conscience. There’s no way I could easily leave this place if it meant everything I’ve been doing this year was about to fall over.

We had a good week at work. The Ngukurr language program went really well this week. We had all 5 languages going and we had a bunch of new people join in this time. One guy in particular was rather enthusiastic about getting involved in the language program which was lovely. I call him brother and he’s only about 35 or so. He’s a Ritharrngu speaker and it’s just so good to have young people keen to teach their language.

S and me also scooted off to Hodgson Downs for Alawa classes at the end of the week. There were hardly any kids there because they’d all gone off to a big festival at another community. (I’d like to say ‘at a community nearby’, but the community is still a good 230kms away). Classes went really well though because we seemed to be left with some of the best students and they actually listened, participated, learned and wanted to learn. how nice!

Oh, one other thing we did at work this week was start testing the kids at Ngukurr to see if they’ve learned anything. I really enjoyed doing testing, partly cuz I’m a dork and partly because it was good to see the language centre mob learning about assessing kids and good to see kids realising what they know (or how little they know and that they need to try harder). Doing this testing is all part of trying to get this language program taken seriously so that we can get some stinking funding.

Well, I’ve only got a few days left here at Ngukurr and a list of jobs as long as my arm. I’m looking forward to having a break and a holiday and escaping humbug for a while, but I know that as soon as I’m gone I’m going to start missing this place and the people like crazy. Bobala mi!

Comments

Anonymous said…
Hope you have a great holiday!
1:18 pm
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Oscar-winning Coda and its (mis)representation of interpreting (or, why I almost walked out of the cinema)

Ok so I'm a linguist not a movie critic but I am an avid movie-goer - part of the generation of Australians raised by Margaret and David to appreciate cinema and think critically about it. (I've even reviewed a few things on this blog: Short-doco Queen of the Desert , short film Lärr and some discussion of the brilliant Croker Island Exodus here ).  At this years Oscars, the film Coda surprised many by taking out Best Picture. It seems like few people have even had a chance to see it. Here in little ol' Katherine, we have a brilliant film society at our local Katherine 3 cinema, where each fortnight we get to watch something a bit different. In late 2021, I had the chance to see Coda there, long before it was thought of as an Oscar contender. Now that Coda is being talked about more than ever before, I wanted to share my experience of watching the film - especially because in one scene in particular, I was so angry that I genuinely considered walking out of the cinema -...
3 comments
Luk mowa >>

Subtle features of Aboriginal English that I love: agreeing or confirming by copying

Linguists aren't supposed to play favourites, but I love Aboriginal English. Maybe because it's what the love of my life speaks and separating language from people and society isn't a realistic prospect. I'm lucky to regularly be around Aboriginal people speaking English in all sorts of ways and privileged to have insights into some of the more subtle ways in which Aboriginal ways of using English differ from the suburban white English I grew up speaking.  I want to share some of these more subtle features. Not just because I am fond of them but also because they seem to be features that escape the attention of most academic discussions of Aboriginal English / Aboriginal ways of using English. I'm going to skip over the complexities of what Aboriginal English is (and isn't) and also if/why that label is worth using at all (a chapter I wrote on Aboriginal English(es) dips into some of that discussion - email me if you want a copy). For brevity's sake, let...
18 comments
Luk mowa >>

The time Kriol went viral

Early in 2022, while doing my daily doomscroll on Twitter, I noticed Kriol becoming a topic of conversation. Excuse me, what? When part of my day job is trying to get non-Kriol speakers to pay attention to the fact that Kriol exists, I never expected Kriol to organically go viral! But it happened. And it wasn't cute. Kriol goes viral The story starts with Covid. In late 2021, the Aboriginal Health Council of WA  (AHCWA) created a few short Covid vaccination videos in some of WA's main Indigenous languages, nobly wanting to make sure remote Aboriginal residents were as safe from Covid as urban Westralians.  Made in collaboration with AIWA (Aboriginal Interpreting WA), five short videos appear on AHCWA's website - one with Mark McGowan on his own where he says: Hello, my name is Mark McGowan. I am the Premier of Western Australia. This is an important message to keep Aboriginal people safe. You can die from the Corona, or get really sick. It's time to get the Corona nee...
20 comments
Luk mowa >>