that munanga linguist

Wow. More great stuff coming out of the national Inquiry into Language Learning in Indigenous Communities. The inquiry committee has just been to Adelaide and it must have been great. I just read through most of the transcript and particulary loved this bit where the Member for Durack (WA), Barry Haase , challenged Kaurna speaker Dr Alitya Rigney about why government funds should spent on reviving Aboriginal languages. She stood up to him very well. More than very well... Mr HAASE : ... I am trying to wrestle with your concept that the federal taxpayers should make further contribution to the teaching of the language which is—in your own words, but not the same words—almost dead, and you are now resurrecting it. I am trying to find a reason other than an emotional reason, which is important, an artistic reason, which is important, and a cultural reason for the taxpayers of Australia funding this. What is the other reason that would justify the federal government cutting funding from ...

While staying at the Language Centre on my last trip to Ngukurr, I was visited daily by Bluey. Bluey is a young buffalo that has been brought up by a family in Ngukurr who live down the road from the Language Centre. Everyday, Bluey wanders the street, eating grass. It freaks me out. It is a very big animal to be in such close proximity to, but more than that, in and around Ngukurr, buffalo are animals to be feared and avoided at all costs (unless you're killing one). So it's a bit disconcerting to all of a sudden have a friendly one around. I was working with AD at the Language Centre one afternoon when Bluey came for a visit. AD fed him a couple of gingernut biscuits and then I couldn't resist documenting the occasion on my phone: Although it was completely unplanned, I like this little recording. It's a nice example of spontaneous conversational and entertaining Kriol. Here's a transcript: Juy! Yu gu na la kemp, no daga. Najing Glenda jeya luuuuuuk!!...

I don't mention it much here, but I've been doing occasional bits of writing elsewhere on the net. Mostly, for the language blog on Crikey, Fully (sic) . (You can see my contributions here ). Last week I got a piece published by another website, New Matilda , which is quite a well-regarded independent news and analysis website. I was very pleased that New Matilda published my article. It's a reflection on Marion Scrymgour's time in politics, in particular with the role she played in canning bilingual education after a 34 year history in the NT. You can read my piece here . I was inspired to write it because ABC News in Darwin ran a story about Marion leaving politics and discussed her legacy. Except they didn't mention a thing about her introducing one of the most ridiculous policies I've ever seen - the "Compulsory Teaching In English For The First Four Hours" policy. I'm glad my article was published to counter the glossier stories that came...

I haven't posted about this much but I've been keenly keeping up with the House of Reps inquiry into Language Learning in Indigenous Communities. They're now well into the public hearings and the dates for NT have been set which I'll be very interested in. I just discovered the most recent transcript from the inquiry's public hearings which was with DEEWR - the federal department responsible for education. I found it quite riveting! Go here and it's the hearing from March 1. In particular, my jaw dropped at the bit where Dr. Amanda Day, Acting Branch Manager, National Curriculum Branch, demonstrates that she adheres to the myth that good English outcomes and bilingual education are incompatible. Clearly, she doesn't get that bilingual education can and does produce excellent outcomes for English language learning: CHAIR : All right. You mentioned in your report about the tension that exists between bilingual language learning and of course being fluent....

I'm in the middle of another quick trip to Ngukurr and this afternoon, as I had some quiet time to work on my own, it started to rain. Immediately, a relevant Marra phrase sprang to mind: Gubijiji jil-ajurlu! It is another nice little example of what a lovely language it is. While boring old English has the noun 'rain' and lazily uses that to make the verb 'to rain'/'raining', Marra is cleverer. There is the noun, gubijiji , and a special verb, jil-ajurlu , which means 'it's raining'. So if I wanted to translate gubijiji jil-ajurlu into English in a literal way, I'd end up with: Rain is raining. What a primitive language English is! :-P  The rain is lovely though...

Ever since I became addicted to Facebook 6 or 7 years ago, I've wanted to have the interface available in Kriol. (You can have it in French, Pirate, Upside Down English and Icelandic, but all the small languages like Kriol missed out). Well, now you can! A very clever fellow wrote some code that lets you translate some of the most common words and phrases on the Facebook interface into whatever language you like. So I whipped up a Kriol version and hey presto - here's what my Facebook looks like now: It's really easy and fun, and it actually does make me more inclined to write stuff in Kriol. It's available for anyone to install on their own computer and absolutely free. So, if you want to have FB in Kriol too, here's what to do: Installing Facebook in Kriol on your computer: So far this only works on computers where you can download and install a little file. It won't work on mobiles etc. 1. Make sure your Facebook account's language is set to ...

You couldn't make this stuff up. Calling the police in the NT now goes to a centralised call centre in Darwin where the people who answer the calls have zero local knowledge. Elders in Lajamanu want to contact local community police but instead get a nitwit in Darwin asking ridiculous questions. (And would the police have Aboriginal language-speaking interpreters on stand-by? Don’t think so!). Nobody outside of Darwin wants this new centralised police call centre. School starts today. Thousands of kids who speak Aboriginal languages are denied receiving an education in their own language. Attendance in remote schools is worse than ever and the Federal Government is rolling out the “No School, No Food” policy which has been shown to *not* work. The Ed. Dept is now recruiting teachers with no teaching qualifications , bringing in more outsiders who are clueless about working in remote Aboriginal Australia, even if their heart is in the right place. The Australian Human Ri...