Kim Scott gave a talk in Melbourne last night titled “Language & Nation”. (you can see a video of the talk here). His writing has won the Miles Franklin Literary Award, Victorian Premier’s Literary Award, Commonwealth Writers Prize, and Western Australian Premier’s Book Award among other honours. Last night he described the way in which his work has been intertwined with a rediscovery of the rythms and meanings of his ancestral language, Nyungar, from Albany in Western Australia. He works with the Wirlomin Noongar Language and Stories Project to, as he put it, ‘creep up on an endangered language’ through community meetings, creating artwork, and visits to country.
Endangered Languages
FollowCharting Vanishing Voices: A Collaborative Workshop to Map Endangered Oral Cultures
A two-day conference titled ‘Charting Vanishing Voices: A Collaborative Workshop to Map Endangered Oral Cultures’ ran on June 29/30 in Cambridge, UK. Organised by the World Oral Literature Project, the conference brought together a range of ‘scholars, digital archivists and international organisations to share experiences of mapping ethno-linguistic diversity using interactive digital technologies.’ A discussion … Read more
ELAR cracks a ton
The Endangered Languages Archive (ELAR) at SOAS reaches an important milestone this week when our 100th deposit goes online. We will be working on a further 10 deposits and doing additional curation work on those currently online over the next two months. ELAR now has 4 terabytes (4,000 gigabytes — double that I reported in … Read more
Australian Aboriginal Language Materials in ELAR
If you are interested in Australian Aboriginal languages you might like to take at look at the growing number of collections of audio, video and text materials that are now available in the ELAR archive. Currently there are six online collections (comprising almost 900 file bundles) for languages from northern Australia, with one more from … Read more
LDD and FEL books on sale
To celebrate Endangered Languages Week at SOAS we have cut the price of all issues of Language Documentation and Description by 20% until the end of May (copies now GBP 10, including postage). You can place orders through our online store. Also, all Foundation for Endangered Languages books are now 25% off. Orders may be … Read more
ELW podcasts
As part of Endangered Languages Week at SOAS some of our postgraduate students have prepared a series of podcasts about a range of topics that are now available from SOAS online radio. They include Facts for newbies, an introduction to endangered languages and their study. Launch of the Language Landscape website that describes a project … Read more
Endangered Languages Week 2012
This year’s Endangered Languages Week will be held at SOAS from 3rd to 11th May 2012. The focus this year is on Language, Performance and Culture. There will be presentations of films, talks, and performances about endangered languages and cultures over the week. Bob Holman, poet, film maker and co-director of the Endangered Language Alliance … Read more
Book launch: Kaytetye Dictionary
At the Aboriginal Languages Workshop at North Stradbroke Island last month, as usual there were things to celebrate. I had the honour of helping launch the Kaytetye Dictionary*. Book launches are a lovely way of thinking about and celebrating people’s work and ideas. Here’s what I said, more or less. Things I love about this … Read more
Yet another 40 years on
This month marks the 40th anniversary of my first venture into linguistic fieldwork and my first data collection on an Australian Aboriginal language. Looking back it was a kind of crazy way to start my career, but nonetheless one that got me set on a path that has given me the chance to work on … Read more
The living archive of Aboriginal languages – call for expressions of interest
CALL FOR EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST DEVELOP A USER-FRIENDLY SEARCH INTERFACE AND TOUCHPAD APP FOR A DIGITAL ARCHIVE OF LITERATURE IN ABORIGINAL LANGUAGES THE LIVING ARCHIVE PROJECT Submission date: 30 April 2012 During the era of bilingual education in the NT, books were produced in 25 Literature Production Centres in more than 16 languages. These materials … Read more