Comments for Endangered Languages and Cultures

Comment on Imagine … a world without PARADISEC by Sadami

Sadami — Wed, 15 May 2013 10:26:43 +0000

Congrats on PARADISEC’s wonderful news! Hurrah for wonderful, hardworking and brave linguists!!
Best wishes, Sadami

Comment on PARADISEC’s decade celebration conference by David Nash

David Nash — Sun, 17 Mar 2013 23:53:52 +0000

As it happens, a relevant and interesting article by the anthropologist Thomas Widlok has just appeared: 'Analogical problems with digital data' The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 14.2(2013),183-194 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14442213.2013.76869

Comment on International Mother Language Day 2013 by Ambra Sancin

Ambra Sancin — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 07:04:32 +0000

Hi – good post and such an important topic I think. It’s good that UNESCO has proclaimed 21st Feb as International Mother Language Day but would be great to promote/celebrate it to a larger extent in Australia. Wondering if there’s any funding available to create more of an awareness in 2014. cheers. By the way, my latest blogpost was about Mother Tongue: http://ambradambra.wordpress.com/2013/02/24/mother-tongue-turns-to-thoughts-of-food/

Comment on International Mother Language Day 2013 by Mari Rhydwen

Mari Rhydwen — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 22:06:26 +0000

This is slightly off the point, but I just received a link < <http://www.thejakartapost.com/bali-daily/2013-03-02/new-curriculum-brings-fear-scholars-students.html to an article about a change in the curriculum in Bali such that Balinese, as a language, will no longer be on the curriculum in Balinese schools. It will be subsumed as part of 'arts and culture' and, as any of you who have experience in developing and implementing language curricula will know, that it the thin end of the wedge driving towards language loss. I feel very concerned about this happening in a place that has been resisting linguistic and cultural imperialism on two major fronts for so long. What to do? In the first instance, I am letting you all know about it in the hope some of you may have some insight into how such decisions are made and swayed.

Comment on What’s your ‘skin’? by Cat Kutay

Cat Kutay — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 11:19:16 +0000

The skin is not the same as the totem, at least for some people. But skin has the nice similarity to kin in english. It does not seem to refer to a subsection of anything except maybe Moiety? Maybe (family/community) relationship. It needs to include the idea that it provide a link or likeness with many others of the same skin….

Comment on What’s your ‘skin’? by Cassy Nancarrow

Cassy Nancarrow — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 05:57:08 +0000

In Lardil the term ‘julda-rel’ and in Ganggalida/Yukulta the term ‘bultha’ – both literally meaning ‘head hair’ are translated as ‘skin’ (as in subsection).

I have heard it said (by a Garrawa elder who has lived mostly with Ganggalida people) that you can tell what ‘skin’ someone is by their (type of) hair.

Comment on What’s your ‘skin’? by Sue Hanson

Sue Hanson — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 06:56:32 +0000

family shadow

Comment on What’s your ‘skin’? by John Mansfield

John Mansfield — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 06:31:07 +0000

The Murrinh Patha term is “nginipuny”, which can also mean literally “skin”, “body”, or “like/similar”. (However there is another term “darripi”, which also means “skin” or “bark”, and I think is used more often to talk about these physical things.)

Note that Murrinh Patha people only took on the subsection system in the early twentieth century, and have since largely discarded it. Perhaps the polysemy with literal “skin” is related to this recent borrowing?

Comment on Munanga by John Bradley

John Bradley — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 09:40:32 +0000

Just a comment about Stretton’s phrase arndara moonanga- have you seen a white man? arndara is most probably ngandarra- it takes are large number of meanings such as , what are we going to do?, what do you want?, what now?, what are you up to? and in the way it is used by Stretton it is taking the meaning of what about? So the phrase is saying “What about white man?”. Yanyuwa also has a way of taking borrowed or avoidance dialect terms and using them for exotic entries into their country, thus the Macassan term libaliba for dugout canoe, becomes a-libaliba and is the avoidance dialect term for dugout canoe, the term nukurnu, which is the avoidance term for food of any type is now the term for tamarind tree or fruit, it is possible that munanga could be the avoidance term for yankarra, stranger, unknown people. I have no evidence for this but it would fit a trend that does appear in Yanyuwa. The term munanga is now totally associated with white men and perhaps more particularly white culture at Borroloola, but it should be noted that Stretton does give it a gloss of stranger.

Comment on Munanga by David Nash

David Nash — Sun, 09 Dec 2012 06:05:49 +0000

Aha, thank you John. 'white man, moonanga (stranger)' and 'have you seen white man? – arndara moonanga ?': both on the last page of 'Customs, rites, and superstitions of the Aboriginal tribes of the Gulf of Carpentaria, with a vocabulary' by W. G. Stretton, Special Magistrate, Borroloola, Northem Territory. Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia, 17(1893),227-253.