Jane Simpson

IML Day – and mother tongue/script monuments

21 February 2015 by Jane Simpson

It’s International Mother Language Day, and Canberra’s celebrations can be seen here from the ABC. So.. the mother language whose defence led to the choice of 21 February for the day: and the second Shaheed Minar monument in Dhaka: And the Afrikaans Language monument: And a mother script – image from Armenians celebrating IML Day: … Read more

Bilingual education coordinator – NT DEADLINE Australia Day

25 January 201520 January 2015 by Jane Simpson

The Northern Territory Government is advertising a three year position to coordinate bilingual education in the Northern Territory. Advertised for one week only in the Northern Territory Government Gazette – but apparently that’s standard. Deadline Australia Day 26 January..

A good person in this position could do wonderful things, but they will have to contend with some history.

JOB DESCRIPTION
Job Title: Principal Coordinator Bilingual Education
Designation: Senior Teacher 4
Work Unit: School Education
Position Number: 35174
Responsible To: Executive Director, Schools North

Primary Objective
The Principal Coordinator Bilingual Education is the department’s officer responsible for the overall co-ordination and strategic leadership of bilingual education in the Northern Territory and is tasked with leading the development of a strategic framework for bilingual education in the Territory.

LAAL looking for a linguist

25 January 201519 January 2015 by Jane Simpson

Message
The Living Archive of Aboriginal Languages is looking to work with someone to help establish a network of academics involved in teaching and researching Australian languages, to facilitate research which involves collaborations with language owners through the archive in undergraduate teaching and postgraduate research. Expressions of interest information is available on the website:

Possible tasks may include the following:

Bring together a network of academic linguists (including possibly internationally) interested in using the Living Archive for teaching or research
Audit degrees and courses which could possibly engage with (or contribute) texts and collaborate with their owners
Read more

NSW Aboriginal Languages in schools

9 January 2015 by Jane Simpson

Just came across this (thanks John Hobson!) From NSW Board of Studies, Teaching and Educational Standards (BOSTES) Attention: Teachers of NSW Aboriginal Languages BOSTES has commenced the development of a Stage 6 Aboriginal Languages Content Endorsed Course (CEC): The course will contribute to the pattern of study requirements for the Higher School Certificate (HSC) and … Read more

Dry-dock launch of ‘Kochlinger’

14 December 201413 December 2014 by Jane Simpson

On Thursday I had a most pleasurable time launching a new book on Australian languages and linguistics at the terrific annual conference of the Australian Linguistics Society in Newcastle (thanks Newcastle organisers!). Here goes for ALS’s first ever dry-dock launch… for Harold Koch and Rachel Nordlinger’s co-edited book (2014) The languages and linguistics of Australia: a comprehensive guide.

Australia has a long and interesting history of developing new kinds of books about language areas. In the nineteenth century we had compendia of vocabularies across Australia or parts – by Edward Curr (Curr, 1887), George Taplin (Taplin, 1879) and Robert Brough-Smyth (Smyth, 1876). This was followed in the early twentieth century by Wilhelm Schmidt’s pan-Australia classificatory work (Schmidt, 1919), and later Arthur Capell’s new approach to Australian linguistics (Capell, 1956). Then Norman Tindale produced his map and bibliography in 1974 (Tindale, 1974). In 1976 Dixon edited a collection of papers by lots of different linguists addressing the same grammatical topics (Robert M.W. Dixon, 1976). A flurry of different types of books appeared in the 1980s—from R M W Dixon and Barry Blake’s editing of short grammar handbook series (e.g. Dixon and Blake, 1983), the handbook series for geographic areas with vocabularies and bibliographies which Jim Wafer initiated (e.g. Menning and Nash, 1981). Then there were overview books (Blake, 1987; Dixon, 1980; Yallop, 1982). In 1993 Michael Walsh and Colin Yallop produced their edited collection of chapters on different topics in Indigenous languages (Walsh and Yallop, 1993). That book became the mainstay of courses on Aboriginal languages and was affectionately known as ‘Wallop’.

Introducing CLIP: Canberra Linguistics in the Pub

1 May 201513 November 2014 by Jane Simpson

[note: we expect a better gender balance in 2014]

Canberra Linguistics in the Pub [from Piers Kelly]

7.45pm, Sunday 23 November 2014

The Castle Room, King O’Malley’s 131 City Walk, Canberra.

No need to register but it may be helpful to click ‘join’ on this page so we get a sense of numbers. We already have a great bunch of interstate and international language people coming so it promises to be fun.

Depopulating remote Australia

13 December 201412 November 2014 by Jane Simpson

In 2006 shifts in government policy caused me to write a a post about the likely effect on remote communities. It ended:

Why does the Government want Aborigines off Aboriginal land? Some probably believe the story that moving to town will make Aborigines ‘fit in’ better with other Australians. But it’s hard to forget that once Aborigines are off their own land, it will be much easier for others to get access to the land. Develop it, mine it, bulldoze it, oh whatever. And the royalties the Aborigines receive will go to pay for patching up the fringe camp societies.

Read more

The 2014 ARC Cup

13 December 20145 November 2014 by Jane Simpson

An astonishingly good ARC Cup run for Indigenous Australian languages. Onya! Good news for horses from PARADISEC, ELAC blog contributors and the new Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language.

Amidst this joy, deep sympathy to the many people working in linguistics who put in terrific projects that didn’t get funded.

This is the field for Indigenous language work as I see it – if I’ve missed anyone, lemme know.

Myfany Turpin on Sand goannas in central Australian languages –

13 December 20144 November 2014 by Jane Simpson

From Myfany Turpin

The names for ‘sand goanna’ (Varanus gouldii) in the languages of areas where they are found often correspond to two ethnospecies. Photographed here are the small arlewatyerre and the large aremaye, both from near Barrow Creek, NT, as they are called in Arandic languages (Arrernte, Kaytetye, Anmatyerr and Alyawarr). On this day my companions successfully hunted both in close proximity, so I thought I’d see if there were differences in the scientific taxonomy that could improve my translations of ‘small sand goanna’ and ‘large sand goanna’ respectively.

Human rights, language rights and the Northern Territory Government

13 December 201424 October 2014 by Jane Simpson

Rumour has it that the Northern Territory Government is proposing to scrap the one remaining linguist position in the southern part of the Northern Territory. This position has been going since the mid 1970s, and the occupants have worked with Indigenous people and schools to create shared understandings of Indigenous languages, of the needs of school-children for understanding what happens in the classroom, of the needs of Indigenous teachers for support and training. They have produced amazing materials in Indigenous languages for classrooms, curriculum materials and reference documentation, some of which is archived and available in the Living Archive of Aboriginal Languages.

Rumour also has it that the reason for scrapping the position is because there is “no need for any linguistic expertise in Central Australia and the Barkly schools”.

But rumour doesn’t have it that the kids have all staged a revolution and started speaking Standard English.