A nice reversal: Mount Nameless has got its name back. The Western Australian Government has adopted dual naming guidelines. (The good people of the Geographic Names Boards. Hurrah hurrah!) The Shire of Ashburton agreed to the mountain being called both Mount Nameless (apparently this name was bestowed by a Hamersley Iron survey team in the early 1960s), and Jarndunmunha, the name used by the Eastern Guruma people. (The people are also known as Kurrama*).
[Further update, you can see a picture of Jarndunmunha/Mount Nameless and more discussion at
Filipiniana & Cunning Linguistics.]
[ further to further update, Piers Kelly has sent a photo of the long long view from the top [.jpg]]
The Western Australian Lands Minister, Michelle Roberts, is quoted as saying:
“There are probably hundreds of traditional Aboriginal names, virtually unknown by the general community, for features such as mountains, lakes and rivers that currently have a well-known European name.”
‘Hundreds’? Wrong ball-park.
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Postdoctoral fellowships – University of Sydney 2007 for 2008
If you have an outstanding track record of publications, and you got your PhD between 1 January 2002 and 31 December 2006, and you’d like to work in the Department of Linguistics, University of Sydney, or PARADISEC, then, consider applying for a University of Sydney postdoctoral fellowship. They’re open to all disciplines, so they’re highly competitive. But on top of your salary they give you a once-off research support grant of $25,000, which is pretty useful for doing fieldwork.
If you want to work on endangered languages, especially in the Australia-Pacific area, then e-mail me (jhs AT mail.usyd.edu.au) for help with an application, and copy it to the chair of department, Professor James Martin (jmartin AT mail.usyd.edu.au). If you want to work on music or digital archiving, then e-mail Linda Barwick (lbarwick AT usyd.edu.au). Deadline to get to us: 9 August.
Survey of Scottish Gaelic in Australia and New Zealand
In 2001 and 2002 St John Skilton carried out a survey of Scottish Gaelic in Australia and New Zealand using different means- participating in Scottish Gaelic community activities, carrying out interviews, forming focus groups, and sending out a questionnaire to which he received 178 responses. His description of the situation and his analysis were part of his doctoral work at the University of Sydney, which he finished at the University of Fribourg: The Survey of Scottish Gaelic in Australia and New Zealand PhD 2004.
Skilton examines from many angles the position in Australia of Scottish Gaelic, a language spoken by few, but the heritage language of many. He discusses the demography of the speakers and learners; he shows how opportunities to use and learn the language are shaped by the language practices in Australia – such as the language policies and the teaching of language at schools. He also discusses how the speakers and learners felt about the language. The situation of Scottish Gaelic as a minority language in Australia is both interestingly similar to, and interestingly different from, the situation of minority Indigenous languages in Australia. I quote here one of his concluding summaries.
(W)rite of passage
Last month (on 14th June) I gave a talk at the Tokyo University Linguistics Colloquium entitled “Current Trends in Language Documentation”; some of the ideas I discussed there can be found in a paper under the same name that I co-authored with Lenore Grenoble in the recently published Language Documentation and Description, Volume 4. In my talk I referred to and quoted a recent blog post that is an excellent discussion of what some language communities judge linguists to be useful for. The bottom line is: “Linguists are good for trust and love” – establishing and maintaining good human relationships over an extended period of time. Other things, like linguistic research, follow from that.
Conference on Language Documentation and Linguistic Theory: Call for Papers
Call for Papers
Conference on Language Documentation and Linguistic Theory: 75 years of Linguistics at SOAS, 5 years of the Endangered Languages Project
7-8th December 2007
School of Oriental and African Studies, London
In 2007 the Department of Linguistics at School of Oriental and African Studies celebrates its 75th anniversary. Founded in 1932 as the first department of general linguistics in Britain, the research carried out by linguistics within the department has made a significant and lasting impact on the fields of language documentation and description and linguistic theory.
This conference commemorates both the 75 year tradition of linguistics within the School and the 5th anniversary of the Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Project, comprising the Endangered Languages Academic Programme (ELAP), the Endangered Languages Archive (ELAR), and the Endangered Languages Documentation Programme (ELDP).
The conference aims to bring together researchers working on linguistic theory and language documentation and description, with a particular focus on innovative work on underdescribed or endangered languages, especially those of Asia and Africa. Our goal is to provide a forum to discuss the ways that linguists and others, especially community members, can respond to the current challenges to linguistic diversity and build on experiences of the past.
Themes:
1. implications of language documentation and description for linguistic theory
2. implications of linguistic theory for language documentation and description
3. experiences of language documentation and description and linguistic theory at SOAS
4. new techniques and opportunities for documenting and describing languages
5. community-oriented outcomes of endangered languages research
Struggle for Indigenous rights – bringing the Sami and Aborigines together
[ Forwarded from Günter Minnerup, UNSW] The Sami experience will be the subject of a conference taking place at the Centre for European Studies at UNSW, Sydney, 19-22 July 2007. Among the speakers will be many leading activists of the Sami movement, Sami academics, and researchers on Sami history and culture, covering topics as diverse … Read more
“The Right Thing To Do?” – Jenny Green
[Jenny Green is a linguist who has worked for many years in Central Australia. She’s currently studying sand talk.]
It seems that it is much easier to post something on a blog rather than write a coherent letter to any paper and make new points about ‘the situation’. In an agitated state of mind I have been agonising about what to say for the last week, and I have not yet completed my 500 words. Several thoughts and images do come to mind though. In the past week I have been out and about in what will probably count as affected areas – if not yet declared as such then maybe soon. I was of course interested to hear what Aboriginal people who I have known for a long time make of the situation, and where they are getting their information from.
A colleague and I were returning from a very pleasant day spent in a dry river bed eating bar-b-qued chops and recording songs and stories with a group of Aboriginal women. On the way back we filled the back of the troopie with the remains of a recently slaughtered bullock – head, feet and a few parts of as yet un-named (to us linguists at least!) guts that we all enjoyed talking about on the way home. This was food for dogs, and part of the practice of a culture that does not usually discard the useful remnants of animals. As we arrived we heard the latest broadcast on ‘the national emergency’ blaring from a radio in a community house, including the list of persons on Howard’s task force. It was one of those juxtapositions of realities that often strikes you when you are out bush. Aboriginal people make the best of their lives, often in very difficult circumstances.
Power in the Field (1)
To celebrate the article coauthored with Laura Robinson at Hawai’i just released (which Jane beat me to mentioning first!), here’s an article I’ve had stored up for a while… Note that the LDC article brings together and extends many of the elements discussed in my 3 previous articles from last year (1, 2, 3). In that series I hinted at using a petrol generator as a potential power source. Today I’d like to look some alternative set ups, ranging from the practical to the bizarre.
NEW AND FREE: Language documentation and conservation journal
The inaugural issue (Volume 1, Number 1) of Language Documentation & Conservation (LD&C) is now available at http://nflrc.hawaii.edu/ldc/.
LD&C is a free, fully refereed, open-access, online journal that is published twice a year, in June and December. Please visit the LD&C webpage and subscribe (free), because that will help the journal editors show to their paymistresses/masters that we need and value the journal.
The Table of Contents lists 6 articles, 3 technology reviews and 2 book reviews. Among the articles is one for addicts of Tom Honeyman’s posts on Solar power (parts 1, 2 and 3 – a paper “Solar Power for the Digital Fieldworker” by Tom together with Laura Robinson. The technology reviews include one by Felicity Meakins, who works on the Aboriginal Child Language Acquisition project that I’m involved in, on the transcription program CLAN that we’ve been using. The book reviews include a detailed review by Robert Early of PARADISEC’s manager Nick Thieberger’s recent grammar of South Efate (Vanuatu). Early highlights the important documentation innovation in Nick’s book.
Two community forums with the Social Justice Commissioner
People in Sydney concerned about Indigenous affairs may have the changce to attend two community forums this week with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, Tom Calma, of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC). The first is entitled Directions in Indigenous Policy and Decision Making: Ways Forward, at the launch … Read more