that munanga linguist

While many of my PhD days down south are lonely days , I did have an opportunity to spend a wonderful 24 hours in Sydney last week. The occasion was to visit one of my dearest oldest friends who now lives in New York but was on a rare visit to Australia. I jumped at the opportunity to catch up with her and booked myself on to the Murray's Canberra-Sydney express. (Which by the way, I love dearly, if only for the wonderfully ambiguous pre-recorded post-boarding message that says "We thank you for travelling with Murries/Murray's"). Aside from a great and soul-rejuvenating catch-up with the lovely Ms. Iacovella (continuing a friendship that goes back to being 20 and working at World4Kids Aspley), we spent a few hours wandering through the Art Gallery of New South Wales. One of our common interests is art - she's worked for various galleries for years and I've spent years in Ngukurr where many great artists come from, many of whom I've done language work w...

I watched 4 Corners last night. The program - Punch Drunk - was about the personal and economic cost of alcohol to Australia's young people, police, health and judicial services. It was a great program. I've been put in hospital before because of stupid drunken violence and am all too aware of the problem it is in our society. Today I was flicking through the Marra grammar and rediscovered a nice little text by Mack Manguji Riley about how he doesn't like grog. Mack's little story was recorded in the 1970s and he died a long time ago (he's the brother of famous Marra artist, Ginger Riley ) but I really like his little spiel in Marra about grog. I thought I'd share: Nginarra, nomo laigim grog, gurl-alajurlu, gana nginarra, ganagu gurl-ngajinjiyi wirrju nana nanggayarra, ngabar-alama wul-jari, galimba ganagu wurg-balamayi wala wul-wayarra wul-jalguyi Mi, ai nomo laigim grog weya alabat dringgim, en mi, ai nomo dringgim, im nogud thanja, alabat siksikb...