that munanga linguist

hehehe... I was at the Katherine Markets yesterday drinking yummy coffee and socialising. I was chatting to a couple I've known for ages - one speaks Kriol as a first language, the other speaks English as a first language and both speak the other language well. Because I'd just spent a couple of weeks out bush, my Kriol was well-oiled so I was switching between Kriol and English as I was talking to them. After speaking Kriol a bit, their son (all of 4) goes to me, "Are you speaking French?". Now, this kid can understand Kriol pretty well and hangs around Kriol speakers quite a lot, so I was surprised he thought I was speaking French. I laughed and told him "ai nomo sabi tok Frentj" (I don't know how to speak French) but he still kept asking if I was speaking French... too funny. I realised that for him, the majority of non-English speaking white people he's met in his short life are probably French speakers and I'm guessing he'd be lucky ...

Well, today was looking like a quiet Sunday in Ngukurr, working on my own processing some of the Marra recordings. Well, that's what I did in the morning, but after lunch, I thought I better go visit one of the old Marra ladies who I haven't had much of a chance to sit down with yet. Unfortunately, I couldn't find her, so instead I went to JJ's house and suggested I show the young women hanging around with not much to do (it's Sunday) a bit about processing language recordings using the ELAN program. It was a bit of a stab in the dark, but much to my surprise, the exercise caught on! So, I've just spent about 3 hours teaching two young women, with JJ there for support and supervision, how to transcribe recordings using ELAN. How fun! And they enjoyed it too! This isn't the first time I've shown community language workers how to use ELAN (you can read a blogpost about a previous time here ). Each time I've trained people on ELAN, it's been ...

I suppose I should start posting again now that I'm back in Ngukurr and experiencing lots of neat things again and feeling removed from mainstream Australia (hence the need to write about my experiences to process them and share with others so to feel a little less alone). I'm now into the 'fieldwork' phase of my PhD studies which is the bit that I'm most excited about. I have to be honest and say that after spending so many years working so closely with Aboriginal (and a few Islander) people on their languages, I find University environments quite strange in that there you talk/hear about small, Indigenous languages a lot but in an environment that is removed from context. Even though I adjusted to that during my 3 months in Canberra, now that I'm back in Ngukurr, I can feel that disjunct unsettling me again. Or maybe it's just that I'm really enjoying being back here and feeling so satisfied to be involved in exciting on-the-ground work again. This...

Well goodness. I started this blog what... 4-5 years ago? Originally it started because I was living out bush finding life and work tough and blogging/writing about it was a good way to process my thoughts and not feel quite so alienated. The past few years I've been living in town (the big smoke!) and that same motivation for blogging has waned. (I also blame facebook - it's so much easier to write a 1-2 sentence status update then form actual paragraphs!) But anyways, I'm still here and still in the NT working on languages. The update for 2010 is that I've spent 18 months working at Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education teaching language and linguistics courses to people from all over Australia and it's been mostly really really great. But always in the back of my mind were the languages and people I grew close to while working at Ngukurr for three years. And with the languages so critically endangered I had to make a choice. So now I'm ...

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...)

Background: I'm still here at Kalkarindji where alcohol is banned from the community, as it was before and after the Australian Government's Intervention. There's a club here where you can go to have a beer after work, but only if you've been to work that day. Situation: There are two visiting tradesmen (white (kartiya)) staying near where I am who are having a quiet drink after work. They are breaking one of the laws introduced across most of the Territory when the Intervention came into being. Ethical Dilemma: Do I say something to the Federal Government rep who lives here when I'm on my way out of town or do I let it go? (There are quite a few pros and cons which I won't go into... I'm hoping I'll get some responses that will flesh them out anyway...)

Hello! I'm in Kalkarindji for a week, delivering one of the language courses I teach to a small group of local woman who mostly work at the school. Today was the first day and it was a decent start to the week. The ladies seem keen and already skilled. Some speak Gurindji really well and have good literacy skills already. There are heaps of Gurindji books at the school and I brought a stack with me too. All really positive news - a fairly well resourced language with fairly strong speakers who are fairly literate and are fairly motivated. What more can you ask for? The school has been really helpful and given students release to do their coursework and given us space in the library to do our work, so I have nothing but good things to say. But something interesting did happen when I was talking to a staff member about how exciting it is to have so much there all ready to capitalise on for a language and culture program. I was trying to tell them that here at Kalkarindji it...