Mack Riley says no to grog

I watched 4 Corners last night. The program - Punch Drunk - was about the personal and economic cost of alcohol to Australia's young people, police, health and judicial services. It was a great program. I've been put in hospital before because of stupid drunken violence and am all too aware of the problem it is in our society.

Today I was flicking through the Marra grammar and rediscovered a nice little text by Mack Manguji Riley about how he doesn't like grog. Mack's little story was recorded in the 1970s and he died a long time ago (he's the brother of famous Marra artist, Ginger Riley) but I really like his little spiel in Marra about grog. I thought I'd share:

Nginarra, nomo laigim grog, gurl-alajurlu,
gana nginarra, ganagu gurl-ngajinjiyi wirrju nana nanggayarra,
ngabar-alama wul-jari,
galimba ganagu wurg-balamayi wala wul-wayarra wul-jalguyi

Mi, ai nomo laigim grog weya alabat dringgim,
en mi, ai nomo dringgim, im nogud thanja,
alabat siksikbat, bigmob,
en alabat nomo wekwekbat, det najalot, ola yangboi

As for me, I do not like grog. They drink it.
I do not drink it, that is bad.
Many people die,
and others - single men - do not work (because of grog).

Mack Riley's Marra text (above) was recorded in the mid 1970s by Jeffrey Heath who published it in "Basic Materials in Mara: grammar, texts and dictionary" in 1981. The Marra transcription and English translation are by Jeffrey Heath and I did the Kriol translation (which some of you may notice has some slightly different interpretations from what Heath' put in his English translation).

Comments

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 -...

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...

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...

Luk mowa >>

that munanga linguist

Search This Blog