that munanga linguist

So when you've devoted the last 10 years of your life to working on Aboriginal languages it's easy to forget that what you do is actually quite unique in the context of wider (whiter?) society. It's what I do (nearly) every day and what I think about every day and has become completely normalised to me. I do have enough self-awareness to know that I don't lead an average life and have an interesting job but I wasn't quite ready for the responses I got last night when I talked to a couple of people about what I do. I was chatting to an acquaintance - a tertiary-educated professional who has lived in Katherine long enough - who asked me what my PhD is about. So I gave my spiel that tries to make it sound not completely obscure and esoteric. The conversation went something like this: Me: "I'm looking at two languages from Ngukurr - Kriol and a traditional language, Marra - and looking at how you talk about the same topic in both languages. Like, a lot of p...

Just thought I'd share I nice little Kriol turn-of-phrase from yesterday: Me and three of the Marra gang I work with in Ngukurr travelled to Numbulwar for the day to meet up with the old people there who speak Marra. The wet season is officially over, but on the three-hour drive to Numbulwar we were surprised to find out that there had been quite a bit of rain on the road overnight and a large section had turned to mush. My 4WD slid its way through the mud and got us to the other side but it was pretty hairy. After a few hours in Numbulwar we noticed clouds developing again (In Marra:  mala gana durn-garlindu = clouds are rising/moving) and my baba remarked: Yu luk dis kloud, im gaman-gaman nomo ba fan. Ba rein im gaman.     Look at these clouds, they're coming not for fun. For rain, they are coming. Well said,  baba . So we anxiously took off back to Ngukurr earlier than planned and fortunately the slushy part of the road had dried off a bit and th...

1.Watching for the first time video footage from Ngukurr in the 1980s of two old men speaking the Ngalakgan language to each other. I’ve never heard a conversation in Ngalakgan before. The last person I knew of who spoke Ngalakgan fluently died around 2005. 2. Watching another old video for the first time that featured one of the old Marra ladies I’ve worked with quite a few times in the past couple of years. She’s old and frail and lovely and likes to speak Marra more than English or Kriol. Watching the video of her 30 years ago, speaking only Marra for 45 minutes, made me cry. It made me mourn for a time when the Marra language and the few old people who still speak it were in a much healthier state. 3. I’m currently reading the brilliant book ‘TheTall Man’ by Chloe Hooper. It’s about Cameron Doomadgee who died of horrific internal injuries in a cell of the Palm Island police station in 2004. It’s a horrific, tragic story and very well written book. The book didn’t make me cry to...

I'm currently listening live to the Darwin hearing of the Federal Government's inquiry into Language Learning in Indigenous Communities and it's gripping stuff (for me, anyway). The NT Government spoke first this morning and swiftly issued a media release claiming ' Indigenous a clear focus of the Government '. The sentiments are noble and there are certainly some nice projects going on, but for the NT Government to claim it has "clear focus on Indigenous language" is a bit hard to swallow. Yesterday the NT Government handed down their budget and a flurry of self-promoting press releases soon followed. I searched through the 22 press releases and couldn't find a single mention of Indigenous languages. Furthermore, it's worth reiterating that anything the NT Government does for Indigenous languages is undermined by the " Compulsory Teaching in English for the First Four Hours of Each School Day " policy. Apologies and respect to...