that munanga linguist

My PhD adventure is closed, after five long years. I wrote a massive thesis that you can look at here . I don't know if I have anything to say that hasn't already been said about what it's like to do a PhD. It was full on . I learned heaps. It took over my life. I resented it. But I got a lot out of it. It was a selfish enterprise. But I did good community work throughout.  It was gross but great. Boring yet exciting. Expensive yet enriching. Gruelling yet luxurious. Strange beast that it is.  Thanks to supporters and thinkers for your assistance. I am graduating on December 18. I am now left with an equally conflicting good-slash-melancholic hole in my stomach and brain. (I always felt my PhD in my stomach - does that sound weird?). Bear with me while I work on getting over this PhD-post-natal depression. (That's a thing, right?).

Fun fact: In Kriol, dinggal is a verb meaning 'limp' or 'walk unevenly'. In Marra and Warndarrang, dinggarl-dinggarl refers to a weed that produces fruit like this: Notice a connection? I only just noticed it yesterday when I was trying to suss out where the verb dinggal comes from (obviously not English). You can see the verb dinggal described (at 1:10) in this video (courtesy of the ever helpful and brilliant Kamahl and Dwayne): As for those spiky little spurs? They're found across a lot of Australia, not only on on the ground, but embedded in thongs, feet and tyres, all over remote Australia. According to Heath's Warndarrang and Marra dictionaries, the species name is Tribulus cistoides . I'm not sure but it might be the nasty weed known as caltrop (can anyone confirm this?). Obviously, treading on those awful bindi-eyes will make you limp and walk strangely. The link between the plant name in Marra and Wandarrang and the verb shown on the...

I've just finished a little trilogy of videos on Roper Kriol - more specifically on a few words in Roper Kriol that don't come from English. I really like these little videos, although I'm a total novice at video editing (please offers suggestions on how to improve them next time!). Each one describes three words that all Kriol speakers in Ngukurr know, but English speakers wouldn't recognise at all. The two guys on the videos, Kamahl and Dwayne, are just brilliant. They were great at describing and acting out these words and it was all done totally spur-of-the-moment. The poor quality is because I recorded them quickly on my iPhone but luckily Dwayne was using my ZoomH2 digital recorder so at least the sound quality is pretty good. And the words themselves I find really interesting (more on that below). I hope you enjoy the vids: Here's part 1, featuring the words moi , gubarl and ngum : Part 2 features the words ngarra , waranga and dinggal-dinggal : ...

Just drafted another chapter. 22 weeks of scholarship left. Feels like 18 chapters to go. Wanna go home. Hate everyone. Hate everything. 72,000 words written. Still know nothing. 129 works cited. Still know nothing. Marra language still dying out. Kriol. Marra. Kriol. Marra. Knowledgemaintenancelossindicateindicateshiftdemonstrateindicatedemonstrateindicate. I see the blood on the leaves. I see the blood on the leaves. I see the blood on the leaves. Mustn't listen to manic Kanye West songs. Mustn't listen to sad Nina Simone songs. That about sums it up. Now back to the grind... *written on the #3 bus en route to Uni. 

I'm not too far away from finishing my PhD (I hope!) and my plan for afterwards is to come back to Katherine and see what comes my way. I'm pretty confident that I'll find interesting work that utilises my skills and experience like the other day when I was asked to help Djilpin Arts with a Kriol translation of a picture book they're creating. It was only a little job, but very interesting for me because I had to translate it into Beswick Kriol, rather than Roper Kriol which I'm much more familiar with. There was a surprising number of little adjustments I had to make to ensure the translation sounded okay to a Beswick audience and Evangeline at Djilpin Arts was invaluable in providing assistance. There were a few things I already knew to avoid - for instance, Beswick mob say idim  instead of dagat for 'eat', they say deya  instead of ja  for 'there' and my favourite - they say eberrijing  instead of enijing  for 'things/belongings ...

At the moment, all I'm doing with my time is trying to get this PhD thesis written. About 60,000 words down, about 40,000 to go. I've pretty much eliminated all other tasks from my agenda so my to-do-list basically looks like: Write thesis This can lead to some pretty lonely days. Like today. Basically I got up. I went to my office. I pored over data, I wrote a few hundred words, I procrastinated with some emailing and internet surfing. I ate lunch at my computer and by the time I left at the end of the day, I'd barely had contact with any other humans.  It kinda sucks. But I just want to finish the damn thing. Sigh. But I probably shouldn't write a completely dreary blogpost. So here's a neat video I saw today in Murrinh-Patha (the language of Wadeye) and English with a guy tricking people into thinking he's eating dogfood. :-)

I spent last week in Ngukurr and it was great to be back. It’d been eight months since my last visit which is waaay too long. In addition to that, a lot of the time I spent there last year was dedicated to helping the Language Centre . But this trip I actually got to devote some time to doing proper language work again. My academic mission for the week was to find out about what young people know about bush medicine and how much they use it. But on a personal level I was just looking forward to going back, seeing everyone again and seeing the Language Centre in operation again. It was a great week with many highlights, despite my arm being in a cast due to a fractured hand (3 rd metacarpal to be precise). Highlights of the week included: Seeing many many people from Ngukurr who I realise now, kind of for the first time, that I’ve known for a really long time. I was interviewing a guy who’s now 27 and it dawned on me that I’ve known him since he was 19! Kinda f...