that munanga linguist

In Katherine, it's common to get 'humbugged' at Woolies (the local supermarket). Humbugging is basically an unsolicited request for something - usually money. It's different to begging. It's typically done between people who already have some sort of relationship. Anthropologists call it demand-sharing , and it's actually a way of maintaining healthy family relationships. In remote communities, it's typically reciprocal and a leveller. But in town where there's alcohol and wealth disparities, it's more complicated. Humbugging pisses off a lot of white people - especially people who don't know and/or like Aboriginal people. For me, it is what it is. It's a cross-cultural challenge and the prevalence of it in Katherine town itself is a symptom of social inequality. Sometimes it's a pain. Sometimes it's just a means to start a conversation. Sometimes it's a way for me to help a friend in need. So, as it often goes, I dropped into W...

For some reason, a little utterance comes to my mind every now and then, which one of the dear elders I work with in Ngukurr said on a recording back in 2011: ... en God bin gibit wi langgus.   It means 'and God gave us (Aboriginal) language(s)'. It's such a simple, emphatic statement. I'm not religious, but I really like the sentiment. I like that, according to her, Aboriginal languages have an unshakeable, undeniable value because they were given to Aboriginal people/placed on Aboriginal land by God.  My Country - Gertie Huddleston (2002)* The elder who said this, did so as a quiet afterthought at the tail end of a group discussion. It was almost drowned out by others, easily dismissible, but I picked it up and it has stuck with me. The main discussion involved a bunch of elders sitting around talking about language policy at the old Roper River Mission which I'd asked them about as part of my PhD research. Another of the women contributed the most, ...

No one in my close family has been to war, so I've never felt like international conflicts were that close to my life. So for me, domestic conflicts have more immediate relevance. The traditional languages of the Katherine and Roper regions aren't endangered just because parents decided their kids didn't need to know their language anymore. There are huge social and historical forces at play. The warfare that occurred when Europeans first came to this area is one of those major factors. The stories are there - in books, newspapers and oral histories. They're not hard to find. It's just that most people aren't ready to know or want to know. I was surprised and impressed to see Wally Wilfred and Jill Daniels ' entry to 2014 Katherine Prize called Olden Days , depicting a scene of local warfare. I'd never seen them paint this theme before. It's a wonderful painting about our awful and very close-to-home unofficial wars. Lest we forget. Olden Day...

This is a bit random, but I had to share. I've been lolling and beating my fist on the table all night at this video (yes, literally). I had no idea a 17 second cutaway on a TV show could be so LOL-worthy. It really tickles my fancy ... the idea of this cruel gameshow called "Homonym": The cleverness of 30 Rock is only just dawning on me, about 10 years too late. But my appreciation went up a whole nother level when I saw they'd gone all multilingual on the idea and done Homonym in Farsi (Persian)! It's gold: I love that the presenter is just as cruelly funny in Farsi and the Farsi-speaking contestant is brilliant too. I'm very glad that someone put a translation on YouTube. It's goes like this: Presenter: The next term: milk/tap/lion (all pronounced شیر  'sheer' in Farsi - a triple homonym) Contestent: Sure. " شیر" . Like a large cat? Presenter: No, the other one. Contestant: Go to hell! (Literally "soil on you...

Ten years of blogging? How did that happen! Well this is how... revealed in a long, extremely self-indulgent post that hopefully has enough reflection and self-awareness to not make you vomit into your hat. Here's where it all began:  http://munanga.blogspot.com.au/2005/02/oh-my-ive-got-blog.html I started this blog in 2005 in pre-Facebook days when the main ways of keeping in touch with friends and family was phone, email or snail mail. The beginnings of this blog were very innocuous - a way for friends/family to read about what I was up to (I'm a crap emailer and letter writer). At the time I was a few months into my only major stint of living remotely, spending around three years in Ngukurr as a community-based linguist. It was a tough job and I was on a steep learning curve very much out of my cultural comfort zone. I soon found that blogging was a good way for me document and process the interesting and challenging experiences I was having. There were also a group of f...

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...

Wide-eyed and well-educated. That was me, supposedly. That was me when I first camped in an Aboriginal community. I was there to learn about “ the other ”. Except now, I was “the other”. If the community was a billabong that never dried up, I was a fisherman. Transient. Sitting on the bank, optimistically dangling a line, seeking a gift, a prize, some sustenance. But on this day – the day I got my simplest and most effective Kriol lesson ever, I wasn’t a lone fisherman. Me, and - “ them ” - were an awkward “us”. A handful of people lining a creek, at 100 foot intervals, semi-hidden from each other, each in our own quiet space and solitude. Optimistically dangling that line. Except my line was tangled and taut with my own anxiety. I was the outsider, observing “the other” yet being “the other”. How do I act here? How do I speak to these people? How are they gonna accept me? How do we interact? Can I keep my feet on the ground, outta my mouth? I kept fishing, kept that ...