that munanga linguist

Since last week, I've been noticing that I've been becoming more and more proud of the language mob here at Ngukurr and that my love for them has been growing. And today was a bit of a pinnacle, with two politicians coming to visit us here at Language Centre. Not that anyone did anything special today while they were visiting, but just that they're here doing what they do makes me proud. The main reason I've been feeling this way lately is because I've been having a lot of problems with the main office in Katherine - rock bottom staff morale and poor management. In the face of those problems I've been really grateful for this mob here and the support they give me and the consistent good work we do together. But it's funny. Their support isn't revealed through sitting down and talking about things and them telling me everything's okay and I'm alright. It comes through them just being them, being happy to keep working with me, an implicit expr...

Here's another bush tucker. This one is a white currant. In Marra, it's burlanggangga (or 'blanggangga' when it's said quickly). In Rembarrnga, it's gorrowon . Mmm... tasty n sweet.

Now that wet season has happenend (sort of) there's lots of little fruits growing around the place. This one is a kind of black plum, or in Marra: gulinja , or in Rembarrnga: wujal . Tastes good.

At the moment, I’m feeling very uncertain about the future. Worst case scenario for our funding is a disastrous one where Ngukurr Language Centre wont be able to have a linguist working there and it’ll basically close, like it did for two years a few years back. Best case scenario is that there’s nothing to worry about and that we’ll keep going the same way, but even still, we can never be sure from one year to the next what’s going to happen. When it comes round to funding application time, these things weigh on my mind… what if there is no funding. What do this mob do then? What do I do then? What has been the value of the past couple of years if it’s just going to fall over again? It’s not a good way to work, always with the knowledge that it could all be over soon. How are you supposed to achieve anything in terms of community development when things can only develop ‘subject-to-funding’. It’s a big reason a lot of Ngukurr residents grow tired of hearing about the latest sc...

Last year I blogged about giving some of the language workers here spelling tests. Well, I’ve continued doing some work with two of the language workers trying to explicitly teach them about writing down their language, Rembarrnga (which doesn’t have a completely straightforward spelling system). I made them a big syllable chart and have been giving them tests on writing down just syllables. Then I’ve been giving the spelling tests, writing down some simple words. It’s pretty amazing. Really, these two are still at a pretty low level, but they’re learning. They’re thinking about breaking words down into syllables now. And they seem to actually enjoy doing the work. But the coolest thing is that yesterday after giving them a syllable spelling test and a word spelling test, they sat there and kept practising on other words and even sentences. For instance, my mami R, she wanted to write down this sentence: Re-ngœnœ nga-nguna (I’m going to eat my meat, which sounds better in Kri...

Anybody seen that movie 'School of Rock'? ... where Jack Black's character is talking about sticking it to 'the man' and talking about 'the man' being any kind of oppressive force - being a specific person or just a general force. Well 'the man' beat me hands down today and it's getting me down. 'The man' came at me from a few sides too, which makes it even harder. I shouldn't really go into details for fear of getting too bitchy but just wanted to say that I don't feel so great right now. I just want to learn, work with, teach, record, transcribe, write down, speak, listen to the endangered languages here and the people that speak them. But it's just not that straight forward. It never is I suppose. Bobala mi. In other news, I got an anonymous Valentine's Day card today, which is quite funny.

I haven’t written about this on my blog before because I didn’t know where to start and I still don’t really feel like going into details. But at the end of last year, two days before I left Ngukurr for my Christmas break, there was a tragic and hugely significant death here. The entire community was, and still is, in shock and disbelief about it. The man that died was an old song man, a very important culture man and someone that everyone looked to for anything to do with ceremony and culture. He was also a completely unassuming man, always happy and smiling and never caused trouble for anybody. He was a cute little oldman too, which really belied his knowledge and strength and importance. And he died in a tragic way before his time. It’s awful. Anyway, today, after two months, his body came back to the community. I joined the procession towards the end and it was really moving, really sad, but there was also something really matter-of-fact about the ceremonial aspects to the pr...