that munanga linguist

My last couple of trips to Ngukurr to continue fieldwork on Marra have seen a slightly interesting development. Me and the Marra gang I work with at Ngukurr have continued our work nicely, going through old untranscribed recordings and also making new ones. What's changed on the past couple of trips is how we've been doing the transcriptions and translations. Last year when we started, most of the time I'd play recordings and the Marra gang would listen, repeat the Marra for me and translate it into Kriol, and I would enter it straight into ELAN. This is, I guess, a fairly standard way for linguists to work, with the linguist being the scribe and generally it was efficient and rewarding. But some sessions I'd encourage them to do the transcribing and practice/develop their Marra literacy skills. We had one long recording in particular that was perfect for this where the recording contained English translations and the Marra was only words and basic sentences. Most ...

ANZAC day came and went and, yet again, I found myself not caring and not getting it and wondering what the fuss is about. I feel like I'm being very un-PC and un-Australian way to think this way. I think the reason behind my feelings is that I question why there is so much hype and energy spent on ANZAC day - over the sporadic innocent deaths that have happened to our troops over the years - when the death and violence that was so prevalent in frontier Australia is virtually ignored. So many innocent Aboriginal people died and it's heartbreaking and unacknowledged and we are still dealing with consequences, especially here in the NT. It didn't happen very long ago. This arvo I again picked up John Harris' Northern Territory Pidgins and the Origins of Kriol which paints a vivid socio-historical picture of the NT when pidgin spread and Kriol developed. I'd like to share a section I hadn't read before today. It features a piece written by Robert Morice in 188...

I've been reminiscing lately and had a read through some of my blog posts from years back when I would post really regularly. (Okay, not so much reminiscing as procrastinating from study, perhaps). The blog posts that got the biggest responses were about the first community meetings after the Intervention was announced (see here and here ). I still regard the Intervention as one of the nails in the coffin that caused me to burnout and leave Ngukurr after three years of successful work. It was so demoralising to have something so huge dumped on you from 'above'. And I wasn't even an Aboriginal resident! The issue of the Intervention is ongoing. Many feel it is contributing to town-drift which is in turn leading to worsening homelessness, crappier housing situations, increased crime etc. The NT Government's silly 'Growth Towns' policy and neglect of outstations/small communities is also to blame, in my opinion. Oh, and check out Ngukurr mob talking ab...

It's been said before but life in remote communities is tough. I've been helping the language gang at Ngukurr to establish themselves as an independent organisation to re-start the language revitalisation activities they were carrying out for years under the auspices of the now-crippled Katherine Language Centre. The Ngukurr group have held meetings and taken all the right steps to get established. Next on the list is to open a bank account. At a meeting, they decided on signatories and chose ANZ as their preferred bank (one of three major banks with branches in Katherine), all sensible and following the right processes. So today I went to ANZ to get the account-opening process started. The good news was that the Ngukurr mob have done everything right and have everything they need. Just one "simple" step that actually wasn't simple at all and really pissed me off... "So the signatories just need to come in to the branch and then we can set up the account...

Wet season travel in the Top End is never straight-forward. Ngukurr is cut off by road for 4-5 months every wet season, thanks to the Wilton and Roper Rivers rising and making crossing impossible. When it really rains hard, more crossings become impassable and it can turn into a nightmare. I was ready to leave Ngukurr in mid-Jan after a two week trip, right in the middle of the wet season. I'd booked my 4WD on the barge, which would take me up the river, bypassing the flooded crossings, and from there it's just a 3 hour drive back home to Katherine. A 5-hour trip all up - not much longer than the 4 hour dry-season trip. But the night before I was due to leave it rained and rained all night. Enough for me to be woken by splat.... splat... splat... near my head as the pounding rain found a way to squeeze itself ever-so-slightly through the roof. In the morning, I knew it would be touch-and-go as to whether my planned trip was achievable. After getting as much info as I cou...

Nga-gin.garra ! Jawayiga! :)

Today was a fairly average day for my fieldwork in Ngukurr. Average, yet remarkable. Me and the Marra mob I work here with did two sessions today and did some good work on Marra. But just in those two short sessions, we spanned a 45-year period, exemplifying that the Marra language is actually being remarkably resilient given the sociocultural situation it finds itself in. This morning BR, JJ and FR worked with me and I encouraged them to continue some Marra literacy and transcription practice. So we used an archived recording made in 1966 by Margaret Sharpe and Stanley Roberts. It's a great recording to listen to and use for transcription training. The words and sentences aren't too fast and complex and we get to chuckle and Margaret and Old Stanley's not-quite-perfect Marra and English skills. It's also great that such an old recording is lively again. In the afternoon session, I had a go at doing my own elicitation session with FR and MT. BR and GB where there...