[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.
FollowPower 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
Thaynakwith people’s dictionary
The only fluent speaker of the Thaynakwith people’s language, Dr Thanakupi Gloria Fletcher, has just produced a dictionary “that includes the traditional stories, songs and art of the Thaynakwith people” of western Cape York, with the help of other community members, and Bruce Sommer and Geoff Wharton. It was praised by Peter Beattie – wonderful to see a major government figure interested in Indigenous languages.
To be or not to be a field linguist? Amy Cruickshanks
Thoughts from a student after surviving our Field Methods course.
The decision to take this unit of study came easily to me. Having had Field Methods recommended by fellow linguistic-loving students as one of the best linguistics classes EVER!!!! I was pretty much sold even before I knew the class was on offer. And as prior to this class the only world of linguistics I knew was a theoretical one with data being presented on a nice little platter for me to pick up and analyse with no thoughts or concerns as to how the data actually made its way to me in the first place, I thought it might make a nice change for me to personally go through the elicitation process. Plus, this way I didn’t actually need to deal with the sand and dirt that generally goes hand in hand with field work, as I could get some experience in the field right here in our beloved intransient Transient Building.
The devil’s in the detail
(1) Details of changes to 7,000 people’s wages
On 1 July seven thousand Australian Indigenous participants in Community Development Employment Projects (CDEP) are set to lose their wages. A few will have the CDEP positions converted into real jobs. But most will not.
There’s a worrying lack of detail as to how the Federal Government proposes to manage the transition and the immediate problems caused by lack of money in communities in which CDEP may be the main income. This is highlighted in the Social Justice 2006 report by Tom Calma, the Social Justice Commissioner. The report which was sent to the Attorney-General on 5 April 2007 contains an alarming indictment of the Federal Government and the Federal bureaucracy’s general ability to manage Indigenous affairs. It seems to have got buried in the publicity surrounding Ampe Akelyernemane Meke Mekarle “Little Children are Sacred”.
Backtracking, in Western Australia, police in Broome have already blamed changes in CDEP payments for drawing people into towns from the communities.
Mutitjulu Community Statement
Concern has been expressed about the re-posting of the Randalls’ statement about Mutitjulu which was sent to me for circulation. So I’ve removed it. You can read it here at Crikey, and it is commented on in The Age. See also this article in the Brisbane Times, in which Donald Fraser, a community member, is … Read more
Abuse of Indigenous children in towns and communities
Last time John Howard’s ship came in, it was a Norwegian freighter, as Max Gillies observed. Today’s Crikey has a Special edition: Howard’s Aboriginal emergency, which suggests that this time, he’s running the Aboriginal flag up the masthead.
Ten years ago when Howard came to power, his new Minister of Aboriginal Affairs, Senator John Herron, said that his predecessors had got it all wrong. He wanted Aboriginal ‘self-empowerment and said that the Howard government would adopt ‘practical, commonsense policies’ on health, housing, education, employment and improve Aboriginal people’s lives.
That didn’t happen.
Endangered languages and Taiwan
[I began this blog on Saturday 9th June while sitting in Taipei Airport at the end of five extremely interesting but rather exhausting days in Taiwan. I was reflecting on the International Conference on Austronesian Endangered Language Documentation (held at Providence University (PU), and especially the two day post-conference excursion to Sun Moon Lake and Puli. I put the finishing touches to this post on Saturday 16th June sitting in Narita Airport, Tokyo, thanks to a four hour delay in the departure of my BA flight back to London.]
The International Conference on Austronesian Endangered Language Documentation, which was organised by Victoria Rau, Meng-Chien Yang, Yih-Ren Lin, and Margaret Florey brought together around 40 people from Taiwan, Australia, the Philippines, Thailand, UK and USA working on endangered Austronesian languages.