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Roly who?

I've mentioned before that I'm a bit of a fame whore.

And so I'm rather pleased with myself that a little article I wrote is currently appearing in a Melbourne street rag. But what is really neat is that the mag is not something I would thought I would ever be asked to contribute to. It's the inaugural issue of 'The Design Papers', a street mag put out by the National Design Centre in Federation Square. A designer called David Lancashire contacted us here and asked for a few 'pidgin' words. When I explained that what we speak here is Kriol and it's not a pidgin, they asked me to contribute a piece. So David Lancashire did some graphic design to illustrate the Kriol words I gave him, a wrote a piece about Kriol at Ngukurr and Peter Muhlhausler wrote a piece about pidgins.

What I didn't get was what a design magazine had to do with pidgins and Kriol, but the story goes is that design can be used find common ground when language can't bridge the gap and that is something shared with pidgins and creoles.

So anyway, if you're in Melbourne, next time you get a coffee look for 'The Design Papers'. And if you're mates with Roly Sussex or Kate Burridge, try and put their mind at ease because I'm sure they're getting a bit concerned about this up-and-coming pop linguist... hehehehehehehehe...

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