former Senator Aden Ridgeway writing articles in English and Gumbaynggirr

When was the last time you saw a piece in major daily newspaper written in both English and an Indigenous language? This is from Aden Ridgeway, who was a Senator in the Australian Parliament a few years back - one of the few Indigenous politicians that ever made to Canberra. (Noel Pearson has never made it that far!) Aden adds his voice to those critical of the NT Govt. policies on English teaching and Indigenous teaching education. Good article!

Please read it by following the link. (Copyright dictates I'm not allowed to post the text here...)

Comments

Unknown said…

It sure is a great article! It reminded me of an incident that occurred in a class of First Nations Students I was training earlier this year. We were talking about the role of music in language revitalization and one student pointed me to the First Voices web site, which hosts all kind of material in Canadian languages. As we clicked around on various links, we came across a recording of the Dene language version of the Canadian national anthem, sung by one of the students in the class. It was a very moving moment as tears flowed in the class. I'd love Aden Ridgeway and Aboriginal people across Australia to experience that feeling.

7:59 am

A conference, language policy and Aboriginal languages in Federal Parliament

The other day, I was priveleged in attending a TESOL symposium about 'Keeping Language Diversity Alive'. One of the speakers, Joseph Lo Bianco was excellent and discussed Language Policy. He gave a handout at one of his sessions that I'm going to type out in full here, because it was a real eye-opener. It's from the Official Hansard of the Federal Parliament from a debate that happened on 10/12/98. Here's how it went: Mr SNOWDON: My question is to the Prime Minister. Is the Prime Minister aware of the decision by the Northern Territory government to phase out bilingual education in Aboriginal schools? Is the Prime Minister also aware that his government funds bilingual education programs in Papua New Guinea and Vietnam? Prime Minister, given that article 26(3) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children, will you take a direct approach to the Norther

Luk mowa >>

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 >>

Lärr: a gentle film revealing a gently evaporating world [short-film review]

Shorts films about endangered languages and culture form a small niche genre but there are quite a few out there. I've never seen one as gentle and beautiful as L ärr. Films in this micro-genre tend to do a few familiar things. They may be pedagogical videos, focusing on cultural practices that aren't being maintained well enough, and explicitly ask audiences to watch, learn and remember. There might be expressions of serious concern for the language and cultural shifts taking place and we see rhetoric from elders and cultural champions urging for action. Then there are ethnographic films - more 'fly on the wall' views of everyday life where constructing narrative or organising scenes to shoot are not primary concerns. L ärr is a 16-minute look at life with some of the last few speakers of Wägilak in the world, on their country, doing very Wägilak things. But the beauty of L ärr is its softness. The four men in the film let you gently into their world, on the remote out

Luk mowa >>

that munanga linguist

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