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workshopping

When I'm not moaning about the latest government policy that will have yet another negative effect on remote Aboriginal Australia, I'm actually doing some work. This week I'm running a workshop for my Ngarinyman and Jaminjung students. These languages are endangered and spoken around the Timber Creek area. I've only got five students this week but they're all doing well and are keen. This week, I'm trying to make sure they know their alphabet well (as well as know what an alphabet is!). I'm making sure they can all read a decent amount of basic words. And I'm trying to make sure they know what nouns, verbs and affixes are. Some of the students have no trouble with this stuff but for some it's hard work. What's great is that they're all trying and they're all learning, slowly but surely.

And I'm enjoying learning a little bit more Jaminjung and Ngarinyman. Especially Jaminjung. I'd never really heard that language before this week. It's really different to any other language I've come across.

These are the nerdy things that linguists get off on - hearing new languages. woo!

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Anonymous said…
woo!
4:54 pm
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