Skip to main content

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 off on my next adventure - a PhD! Goodness. I'm looking forward to the challenge and to learning new skills and geting more knowledge (and wisdom... and less hair) but most of all I'm looking forward to devoting an awful lot of time and energy to Marra language and people. There are only a few very old people who are really strong in Marra language and culture and I hope to do lots of work with them while they are still with us. So, next week I'm off to Canberra to get started with my PhD studies and I hope to be in the field before I know it, recording and documenting lots and lots of Marra language and stories. Wish me luck!

You never know - I may even start up with this blogging business again...

Ma. Guda.

Comments

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 >>