that munanga linguist

This week I got rather excited upon hearing that the ABC is trialling an Indigenous language news service in two NT languages: Warlpiri and Yolŋu Matha. It's such a great initiative and got a bit of attention when it started, which made me think that it'd be nice to offer a beginner's guide to the languages and a closer look at what reports in the languages actually look like, as I guess most people who heard about the service know little about the languages involved. It's also slightly unfortunate that despite the launch of the Indigenous language news service getting some great attention some of the communications failed to make a distinction between separate Indigenous languages, e.g.: ABC tweet with Warlpiri newsreader Vaughan Hargraves Jampijinpa This is a minor problem in that it may perpetuate common misconceptions that Indigenous languages are just closely related dialects. Some people still think there's only one Indigenous language. So I thought ...

Today is Territory Day and while I am a proud Territorian in many ways, it's a challenging place and there is lots going on here that I don't particular like or value. Any long-term readers of my blog will probably notice that I've become increasingly jaded over the years and am now thoroughly disillusioned with many things that happen in the NT, like the Government's poor record of  education delivery in remote communities and the increasing push for mining development that undermines environmental concerns and Aboriginal relationships to country. My list of gripes is pretty endless. A constant on that list is the neglectful treatment of Aboriginal languages and failure of so many to value the amazing linguistic diversity found in the Northern Territory, which has been diminishing unabated for decades now. Official language policy in the NT fits nicely within what gets described as a 'Laissez-faire policy' where Aboriginal languages aren't explicitly d...