In a previous posting ‘Modern Grammar from nineteenth century mission materials’ Jane Simpson refers to the 2005 University of Adelaide doctoral dissertation, The language of the chosen view: the first phase of graphization of Dieri by Hermannsburg Missionaries, Lake Killalpaninna 1867-80 by Heidi Kneebone who, she says ‘takes linguists to task for NOT looking at early grammars of the languages they’re working on’.
Now I don’t have a copy of this dissertation and only had a few hours in Canberra recently to skim through a copy lent to me by Luise Hercus. I was impressed by the historical work Kneebone had done with Lutheran sources (some written in an old German handwriting that is incredibly difficult to read, at least for me) and how she turned up materials written in Diyari by native speakers that I had not seen before. But since the thesis makes claims about my own research on Diyari, spoken in northern South Australia, and appears to suggest that the language I recorded thirty years ago from the last generation of fluent speakers was in part a missionary creation, I would like to take this opportunity to make a couple of points.
FollowCongratulations to Taiwan on saving languages big and small
I was thinking about tone-vowel and consonant sandhis in Fuzhou and I stumbled across this spectacular website from Matsu where they put up their primary school Fuzhou language textbooks with recordings of all the texts (and cutesy background music). There are also audio demonstrations of all the consonants, rhymes and tones. Apparently they are also working on putting up traditional kids stories on their website. All the Chinese characters are glossed with IPA and Zhuyin. (Sorry, no English.)
http://www.chinaweblaw.com/matsu/index.htm
Two little somethings for your grant application
It’s Australian grant application time! Joy, rapture! (Skips lightly around the room) If you’re thinking about what to spend your requested squillions on, here are two thoughts: Archiving Be realistic about how much it will cost to prepare your recordings for archiving, and then the cost of archiving itself – if you don’t have a … Read more
Language, tourism, two-way education, reclamation
After weeks of hot weather and blame-firing over failed native title compensation land deals, rape, gangs, children taken into state care etc., it was like a fine lemon gelato to come across a couple of good news stories on Australian Indigenous languages. New flavour-of-the-year language and tourism, and long-term favourite language reclamation.
Modern grammars from nineteenth century mission materials
God and languages are in the air. The Australian Federal Government is cross with a radical Islamic sheik who preaches in Arabic (translator spooks required!). The sheik points out, correctly, that many churches advertise services in Korean, Tongan, etc., and this causes no offence (= no drain on the spook translator budget). The NSW State Opposition leader wants immigrants to Australia to learn a subject called “English as a first language”, not “English as a second language”. “Second”, he thinks doesn’t reflect the importance of English. Maybe he wants immigrants to talk to their gods in English. Clearly, what linguists think a first language is is not yet a mainstream thought.
And linguists have been debating our connections with missionary linguists, language work done by missionaries, and linguistic software built by the missionary linguist organisation SIL (Semantic compositions (11/1/07) on the panel at the LSA and Anggarrgoon). On one side there are people saying that missionaries roll Dalek-like through the societies of the speakers of the languages they study and do bad things, and so their work is irredeemably sinful. On the other side people say that linguists are also a Dalek species, and so, what the hell, if the SIL software’s good and the linguistic descriptions are good, use them. (Setting aside Earthlings who say that both species of Dalek are only into extermination).
And there’s the position taken by Heidi Kneebone in a 2005 University of Adelaide doctoral dissertation, The language of the chosen view: the first phase of graphization of Dieri by Hermannsburg Missionaries, Lake Killalpaninna 1867-80. PhD dissertation, Linguistics, University of Adelaide (noted at OzPapersOnline )[1]. Kneebone takes linguists to task for NOT looking at early grammars of the languages they’re working on.
Name that spider
Today’s Australia Day, the anniversary of the British invading Australia in 1788. Bang! Plants, animals, birds, land-forms got English common names, and the Indigenous language names were displaced. The exceptions were things which had no obvious look-alikes in England: unfamiliar animals (kangaroos, koalas), birds (currawong), plants (kurrajong, quandong), land-forms (billabong, yakka), fish (ponde), and some man-made things and ideas (boomerang, wurley, corroboree).
Two hundred years later, words from Indigenous languages are gradually coming back as parts of scientific names for species.
Guest blogger John Giacon on the NgaawaGaray summer school
STOP PRESS
SBS news – Tuesday January 23, 2007 – is likely to have an item on NgaawaGaray.
NgaawaGaray was a summer school in Gumbaynggirr and Gamilaraay – two New South Wales languages. [Ngaawa and Garay are the words for ‘language’ in Gumbaynggirr and Gamilaraay]. It was sponsored and organised by Muurrbay and Many Rivers language centres from Nambucca and held at the Koori Centre at the University of Sydney on January 15 – 19. There were 16 students in the Gumbaynggirr course and 11 in Gamilaraay. The Gamilaraay course consisted of part of the ‘Gamilaraay 101’ – taught as ‘Guwaalmiya Gamilaraay’ – a first year subject at University of Sydney, and also taught in TAFE. The Gumbaynggirr course was adapted from the regular course run each year at Muurrbay.
Guest Blogger Barry Craig on the Pacific Gallery at the SA Museum
[ Barry sent this in response to the Artefacts, labels and linguists post. He is the curator responsible for the Pacific Cultures Gallery at the South Australian Museum, and has a brilliant website for an Upper Sepik-Central New Guinea project on the relations between material culture and language, geographical propinquity, population, subsistence and environment.]
The outcome of the renovation of the Pacific Gallery is a compromise between the enormous task of upgrading and relabelling an exhibition of 3000 artefacts and the available funding. A lot of money went into removing the 1960s ceiling, replacing aircon, carpet and lighting, and a paint job. I did not agree with the shiny black but the Goths had the numbers in the committee.
We have begun the difficult task of providing renewed labelling in the wall cases – difficult because one case may have around a hundred items and in such instances we can’t provide a label for each individual item – instead we will try to say something about the collectivity of objects that gives the viewer some sense of what they are looking at, in terms of types and geographical distribution (such as in the display of over 80 stone headed clubs). Electronic means of providing information will not be limited in this way and individual items will be provided with full data, including language groups (speech communities) from which the objects have come (where known).
tips for (digital) photography
I bought myself a new digital SLR camera for Christmas, and it revived in me a love for photography. Back in my teenage years I had an Olympus OM-1 – the classic journalism camera of the seventies. I’d run around shooting everything and then come back home to process the film. Fortunately my school had a great darkroom set up… although, it sucked up a lot of time I should have spent on other things.
Its great to have full control of the image again, and I’m not feeling too nostalgic about the darkroom side of things (although that was half the fun!). Single Lens Reflex (SLR) cameras give you a lot of control over your image, but there are several things that you need to know to get started. But even if you’re not into the raw technicalities, you can take good photos with a point and shoot camera.
