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Showing posts from 2010

gossip circles

I love the network of gossip around remote communities (or in any small community, I suppose). The intricate communication networks are quite astounding. A nice little example I was involved in was yesterday: 4pm : JJ calls from Ngukurr. I was in a meeting so didn't answer phone. JJ then calls CK who was in the same meeting. CK answered and put me on the phone. JJ's two daughters are travelling and in Katherine and could I lend them some money for their dinner tonight. "OK, no worries, I'll sort it out after the meeting". 5:30pm : Went to see IP who I knew would know where the two girls were so I could give them some money. Yes, she knew where they were so off I went on my scooter to lend them $50. 5:45pm : Arrived at place where 2 girls were staying. Gave them $50. They laughed because they were hoping to get a lift to Red Rooster to buy some dinner, but they didn't know I was travelling by scooter. They also laughed: "Did IP tell you abou

untie me barry!

A munanga friend was telling me a funny story the other day, which I hope she doesn't mind me repeating here. She got a text message from a Kriol-speaking relative but she didn't know who it was from. The number wasn't stored in her phone. So she replied with a 'who's this?' type message and then the reply came... "untie me barry" This SMS caused quite a bit of confusion. Untie him? Why, what's happened? Has he been locked up? Is someone holding him captive? Knowing that Kriol speakers are susceptible to not expressing themselves perfectly clearly over text messages, she didn't completely panic. But still... 'untie me barry'? After going back to the message about 5 times, finally it clicked. My friend was reading the stress wrong and the sender was using non-English spelling to show that he was 'writing' in Kriol. She finally decoded the message: Aunty! Me, Barry! Which in standard Kriol spelling, would read: Anti, mi

Gumbaynggirr piece by Aden Ridgeway wins UN media peace award!

Last year I blogged about an opinion piece by Aden Ridgeway that was written in Gumbaynggirr and how cool it was. Well, it seems the UN also thought it was pretty cool because they gave it a media peace award! See an article about it here . Good work Aden and also well done to those involved with the great work that seems to be going on in reviving Gumbaynggirr and making Muurrbay one of the best language centres in Australia (if not *the* best).

Ai nomo sabi tok Frentj

hehehe... I was at the Katherine Markets yesterday drinking yummy coffee and socialising. I was chatting to a couple I've known for ages - one speaks Kriol as a first language, the other speaks English as a first language and both speak the other language well. Because I'd just spent a couple of weeks out bush, my Kriol was well-oiled so I was switching between Kriol and English as I was talking to them. After speaking Kriol a bit, their son (all of 4) goes to me, "Are you speaking French?". Now, this kid can understand Kriol pretty well and hangs around Kriol speakers quite a lot, so I was surprised he thought I was speaking French. I laughed and told him "ai nomo sabi tok Frentj" (I don't know how to speak French) but he still kept asking if I was speaking French... too funny. I realised that for him, the majority of non-English speaking white people he's met in his short life are probably French speakers and I'm guessing he'd be lucky

spreading more ELAN love

Well, today was looking like a quiet Sunday in Ngukurr, working on my own processing some of the Marra recordings. Well, that's what I did in the morning, but after lunch, I thought I better go visit one of the old Marra ladies who I haven't had much of a chance to sit down with yet. Unfortunately, I couldn't find her, so instead I went to JJ's house and suggested I show the young women hanging around with not much to do (it's Sunday) a bit about processing language recordings using the ELAN program. It was a bit of a stab in the dark, but much to my surprise, the exercise caught on! So, I've just spent about 3 hours teaching two young women, with JJ there for support and supervision, how to transcribe recordings using ELAN. How fun! And they enjoyed it too! This isn't the first time I've shown community language workers how to use ELAN (you can read a blogpost about a previous time here ). Each time I've trained people on ELAN, it's been

warri-ngarlini (I returned)

I suppose I should start posting again now that I'm back in Ngukurr and experiencing lots of neat things again and feeling removed from mainstream Australia (hence the need to write about my experiences to process them and share with others so to feel a little less alone). I'm now into the 'fieldwork' phase of my PhD studies which is the bit that I'm most excited about. I have to be honest and say that after spending so many years working so closely with Aboriginal (and a few Islander) people on their languages, I find University environments quite strange in that there you talk/hear about small, Indigenous languages a lot but in an environment that is removed from context. Even though I adjusted to that during my 3 months in Canberra, now that I'm back in Ngukurr, I can feel that disjunct unsettling me again. Or maybe it's just that I'm really enjoying being back here and feeling so satisfied to be involved in exciting on-the-ground work again. This

2010 Update

Well goodness. I started this blog what... 4-5 years ago? Originally it started because I was living out bush finding life and work tough and blogging/writing about it was a good way to process my thoughts and not feel quite so alienated. The past few years I've been living in town (the big smoke!) and that same motivation for blogging has waned. (I also blame facebook - it's so much easier to write a 1-2 sentence status update then form actual paragraphs!) But anyways, I'm still here and still in the NT working on languages. The update for 2010 is that I've spent 18 months working at Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education teaching language and linguistics courses to people from all over Australia and it's been mostly really really great. But always in the back of my mind were the languages and people I grew close to while working at Ngukurr for three years. And with the languages so critically endangered I had to make a choice. So now I'm