Friends of Bilingual Learning have put out a media release on the subject, and resolutions from the symposium are expected soon, both long-term and short-term.
I was saddened to learn of the helplessness and isolation of the people who've been working with mother tongue medium programs. Many are Indigenous; many non-Indigenous staff have worked in these remote communities for decades. They're stayers. They get very little support. Policy-makers don't listen to them; they're treated as problems because they can see the importance of starting from where the children are at. They came in their holidays, some got funding from NGOs. It was humbling to hear that the symposium was valuable to them.
What came out strongly from the Indigenous participants in the symposium was the sentiment behind some of the paper titles: They are our children, This is our community (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, Tom Calma), and Nganimpa-nyangu kurdu-kurdu, nganimpa-nyangu Warlpiri Our children, our Warlpiri (language) (Warlpiri community members and Wendy Baarda). Yes we love our children, yes we want the best for them, yes we think they can learn both ways and live in both worlds. It is movingly expressed by Connie Nungarrayi Walit, a Warlpiri health worker:
“The one thing we have left from our parents and grandparents which is really our own is our language, Warlpiri. This is the last thing we have left to pass on to our children and grandchildren,”
The people who have decided that English shall be the language of the classroom will have taken that language away from Nungarrayi's grandchildren. Unintentionally, with the best will in the world, thinking they're doing the Right Thing by Nungarrayi's grandchildren.
]]> What really really pisses me off is that the well-meaning policy-makers don't understand what they are doing. They don't understand that English immersion education throughout the Territory hasn't produced speakers of Standard English; it's produced speakers of creoles and mixed languages. In some respects it's harder to switch from a creole to a standard English. If you speak a traditional language with the weight of culture, art, metaphor and history behind it, then you can talk on equal terms with speakers of English, a language with the added weight of power and access to many people. So, you can swap from one to the other without a sense of loss. But if you speak a creole or camp English, then you are used to whitefellows looking down on the way you talk as substandard English. So, talking standard English comes to be seen as talking like a whitefellow and cutting yourself off from your family. At least, that's my outsider's guess as what's happening.The well-meaning policy-makers don't understand the richness of what will be lost by not using the mother tongue. The richness is indicated in the title of a paper given by people from Yirrkala:(Dharktja Dhuwala Djambulu Maypa: My language has layers and layers of meaning.) which derives from a metaphor involving paperbark. In turn the paperbark metaphor is woven into a comparison between education and the making of cycad bread wrapped in paperbark, which must be done carefully and in stages so as to produce a nutritious food instead of a poison. It was an elegant analogy. They also emphasised bala lili, reciprocity. Not something the Northern Territory Government showed when it reneged on the Remote Area Learning Partnership agreements that the Yolngu and the Government had negotiated - which included support for mother tongue instruction.
The policy-makers also don't understand the weakness of the evidence they're using to tear down the programs - one weakness was brought out by Brian Devlin - the flawed statistical basis of the comparison between the eight bilingual schools, and eight allegedly comparable non-bilingual schools. To this could be added that four of the eight allegedly comparable non-bilingual schools are attended mostly by children whose first language is an English-based creole. So kids in those schools already know a lot of words that are shared with English. It is predictable that in the early years of schooling they would do better on English literacy testing than kids whose first language is a traditional language.
There were impressive demonstrations of two programs. We can learn from them what works. We heard that not all bilingual schools are working well - but we know that mother tongue medium schooling WILL fail if schools are starved of EFL trained teachers, of professional development for Indigenous teachers, and if they are assigned teachers and principals who don't understand team-teaching and bilingual education.
There's plenty of research showing that mother tongue medium schooling can work very well and can work better than English immersion. So, why wouldn't you keep it, if the communities want it? And if it keeps the communities' languages strong? And if, for teaching children English, it does at least as well as (and probably better than) English immersion ?
I suppose you wouldn't, if, in your heart of hearts, you believe that 'closing the gap' means Aborigines becoming more like whitefellows culturally, socially, educationally and linguistically, rather than living longer, in better material circumstances, and keeping and handing on what is really precious to them.
Tom Calma quoted a remark about bad policy - if your horse dies underneath you, get off it.
Outside the symposium there's been some response and coverage. The Central Land Council, which knows the situation of Indigenous children in remote desert communities, has come out in support of the report. AIATSIS staff managed to attract considerable media attention - an impressive feat given how difficult it has been up to now to get the media to be interested in the good things about mother tongue medium instruction) (ABC Online, National Indigenous Times, Stuart Rintoul in The Australian, and several interviews with Miliwanga Sandy from Wugularr community (they don't have a full mother tongue instruction program), including on Bob Gosford's Crikey blog - part 1, and part 2, where she also gives her strong views on "why I’m fighting, still fighting for my people and their freedom and for getting jobs and freedom to have to spend our money in our own ways and where we want to have the freedom to be able to control our own situations."
SBS Radio also had a detailed story on the issue (thanks Sarah!) - currently available in full (streaming) - go to the Aboriginal program and click on "LISTEN TO THE LATEST BROADCAST" - the bilingual education discussion starts about 10:20 minutes in. Two segments are available on podcast - Tom Calma ( podcast) and the Australian Council of TESOL Associations (podcast). Unfortunately the extensive discussion by Sarah Cutfield isn't listed as a podcast.
Will it do any good? Who knows? We have tried, and can only keep trying. Write to the media, to the Chief Minister of the Northern Territory Government, to Gary Barnes, CEO of the NT Education Department, to the Federal Ministers for Education and Indigenous Affairs. Join Friends of Bilingual Education for updates. Support the Ngapartji Ngapartji initiative for a National Indigenous Languages policy. Support the implementation of the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
]]>Well, we have just passed the half-way point of the 3L Summer School and things seem to be going pretty much according to plan. Despite some last minute scrambles (presenters dropping out and needing to be replaced, equipment needing to be bought, rooms being taken out of service) all the classes got organised on time and have run well so far. Even Blackboard, the e-learning support environment, is functioning faultlessly, enabling us to do away with photocopying handouts and having useless piles of paper at the end of each class.
There are 97 students attending the 3L summer school, representing 42 nationalities (Argentinian, Australian, Belgian, Benin, Brazilian, British, Cameroonian, Canadian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Ethiopian, Finnish, French, German, Ghanaian, Greek, Indian, Indonesian, Irish, Israeli, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malaysian, Malian, Mexican, Nigerian, Norwegian, Pakistani, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Saami, South African, Spainish, Swedish, Swiss, Taiwanese, Ugandan, USA). There are 18 instructors, who come from the three consortium universities (SOAS, Lyon and Leiden), along with colleagues from University College London. Three tutors from SOAS and a group of student volunteers, plus our Administrator Alison Kelly, make up the rest of the 3L team.
]]> Roughly two thirds of the students don't speak English as their first language, and so there are plenty of opportunities to hear a range of languages spoken at tea breaks and lunch time. There are also six deaf students, and interpreters for British Sign Language (BSL) and American Sign Language (ASL), attending the courses. The presence of deaf students and sign interpreters in many of the classes is a feature of the Summer School, as is the two-week course on "Documenting Sign Languages". I believe this is the first time that a linguistics summer school has taken sign languages seriously, alongside spoken and written languages.Each day begins with a plenary lecture which all the students attend as a group: so far we have had "Issues in Language Documentation", "Data Collection Methods", "Communities, Ethics and Rights", "Documenting Sign Languages", and "Digital Language Archiving". The remaining plenary lectures are on "Language Documentation and Linguistic Theory", "Language Policy" and "Language Documentation and Typology". Each plenary is followed by a small group tutorial (there are four parallel tutorials) where issues raised in the lecture can be discussed. After lunch there are two sessions of classes with three courses running in parallel in each time slot, so students can choose their preferred topics (for a full list see here).
Friday last week offered a range of practical workshops covering "Video for Documentation", "Advanced Audio", "Software Tools" and "Applying for a Research Grant". The video workshop ran all day while the others were three hours each so that students could combine two throughout the day -- this seems to have been less than desirable however as most students felt they would have benefitted from a whole day on one topic rather than two 3-hour tasters.
The highlight of the summer school for me so far has to be Adam Schembri's plenary lecture on "Documenting Sign Languages" that included Adam presenting examples in a range of sign languages, including Australian Sign Language (AusLAN), with simultaneous interpreting from the BSL and ASL interpreters standing beside him. It was a tour de force. View image [Photo courtesy of Joseph Henderer].
Some of the students are blogging about the summer school at The 3L Dialogues, and there is an active Facebook group, with photos and discussion.
And the weather -- well, unexpectedly for London, it was 25 to 27 degrees C each day last week and today reached 30 degrees. It is predicted to reach 32 on Thursday so no-one can possibly complain about the lack of sunshine and heat. Oh, and it's light until 9:30pm so plenty of time to relax in comfort after classes end each day.
Friday 26th June
8.30 – 9.00 Registration in the National Museum Foyer
9.00 – 9.30 Welcome to Country by Matilda House.
Introduction by Dr Lisa Strelein, Acting Principal, AIATSIS.
9.30 – 10:10 Mr Tom Calma (Australian Human Rights Commission)
They are Our Children, This is Our Community
10:10 – 10:30 Morning Tea
10:30 – 11:15 Dr Jane Simpson (University of Sydney), Dr Patrick McConvell (ANU) & Dr Josephine Caffery (ACU)
Gaps in Australia’s Indigenous Language Policy: Dismantling bilingual education in the Northern Territory
11:15 – 11:40 Leonard Freedman, Peggy Gallagher and Daphne Puntjina (Areyonga School)
Areyonga Two-Way School: What we do and why we do it
11:40 – 12:05 Rarriwuy Marika, Marrkiyawuy Ganambar-Stubbs (Yirrkala CEC), and graduates from the Yirrkala School Two-Way program
Dharktja Dhuwala Djambulu Maypa: My language has layers and layers of meaning.
12:05 – 12:30 Janet (Maxine) Nungarrayi Spencer, Connie Nungarrayi Walit & Wendy Baarda (Yuendumu community)
Nganimpa-nyangu kurdu-kurdu, nganimpa-nyangu Warlpiri Our children, our Warlpiri (language)
12:30 – 1:30 LUNCH
1:30-2:10 Ass. Prof. Brian Devlin (CDU)
Bilingual Education in the NT and the continuing debate over its effectiveness and value
2:10-2:50 Kathy McMahon (CDU) and Cathy McGinness (St John’s College)
Tales from the North: Bilingual pedagogy and sustainability
2:50-3:30 Prof. Joe Lo Bianco (University of Melbourne)
What Happened to Language Rights?
3:30-4:00 Afternoon Tea
4:00-5:15 Discussion Panel. Chair: Dr. Peter Toyne
Panelists: community members associated with NT Two-Way Schools; Prof. Joe Lo Bianco; Dr Inge Kral; Professor Lester-Irabinna Rigney; Dr Jane Simpson
5:30 – 7.00 Reception at AIATSIS
Launch by Prof. Mick Dodson of:
J. Simpson, P. McConvell & J. Caffery 2009: Gaps in Australia’s Indigenous Language Policy: Dismantling bilingual education in the Northern Territory (AIATSIS Research Discussion Paper 24 - see here)
Two new groups of publications are now available from SOAS.
1. LDD 6
Volume 6 of Language Documentation and Description is now available. This volume is a fully-refereed collection of papers dealing with:
The papers were written specially written for the volume, and include the 2009 Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Project Annual Public Lecture by Bernard Spolsky on the revitalisation of Maori. They represent important contributions to the theory and practice of the field of language documentation by leading scholars and younger researchers.
Contents
Volume 6 costs £10.00 (postage and packaging is £2.50 extra). To order go to our website, download the order form, and follow the instructions.
2. FEL books
The Endangered Languages Academic Programme (ELAP) at SOAS has joined with the Foundation for Endangered Languages (FEL) to begin marketing and distribution of the series of publications produced by FEL over the past 10 years. There are 11 volumes available, covering a wide range of topics linking endangered languages to literacy, literature, land, language learning, media, multilingualism, migration and social impacts.
To celebrate this ELAP-FEL collaboration, from 15th June to 15th September 2009 each FEL volume is priced at £12, a saving of 40% off the normal retail price (usually £20). This offer is for a strictly limited time only.
To order your copies at this special price go to our website, download the order form, and follow the instructions.
]]>I was privileged to attend the WA Language Centres conference in Perth last week. Delegates from 5 regional language centres and several language programs spent three days swapping stories at the wonderful Kaditj internet café and conference facility, and probably could have talked for at least another week.
We were warmly welcomed by Noongar elders Dorothy Winmar and Gloria Nora Dann, and Justina Smith who shared her beautiful blend of contemporary and traditional Noongar dance. The progress of the Noongar language program has been breathtaking. Since presenting their very first book at the last conference only two years ago, the team (in partnership with Batchelor Press) has developed a great pile of resources with several different Noongar clans. There are also twelve short language lessons in development for NITV so stay tuned in for those. We also got to hear how language has been incorporated into the Djidi Djidi Aboriginal School in Bunbury. Moorditj!
]]> Heading up north a bit, the Irra Wangga Geraldton Language Centre presented a thoughtful discussion of some of the problems with using the term ‘last speaker’ in terms of how it might lead to over-looking the language knowledge that prevails even situations of severe language endangerment. The Karlkurla Language and Culture Aboriginal Corporation from Kalgoorlie showed us how they have become experts at forging relationships with local businesses in order to continue making some excellent language and culture resources. Calendars showcasing the Tjartitjimpu ‘seven sisters’ dreaming from down their way are an inspired way to get Malpa language and culture into everyone’s kitchens (at least that’s where I put mine).The team from Wangka Maya showed how, in addition to their language work, they have been providing essential services to the Pilbara such as Cultural Awareness Training, Media production, Stolen Generations education & Link-Up services, and Translating and Interpreting. Wangka Maya Chairperson Bruce Thomas shared some of his videos to highlight the very personal and intimate nature of his efforts to record language and culture for the young people. Lesley Woods also delivered an insightful presentation on the role of the language worker within language centres, and discussed some simple measures that can be taken to advance their standing (such as award pay scales, contracts and job descriptions), and thus the sustainability of our language work.
Heading up to the Kimberley, we had a lovely demonstration of the intensive Nyikina dictionary working being conducted by Madjulla Inc in Broome. Via the free SIL program Lexique Pro, corrections, expanded definitions, example sentences, audio recordings and pictures were added in real-time. Great stuff. Lexique Pro is also being used as a ‘living dictionary’ further east at the Kimberley Language Resource Centre, where they are advancing a capacity building model to skill up local people in all the facets of language documentation. Looks like Lexique Pro is worth another look!
A five-strong delegation from the farthest corner of WA, Mirima Dawang Woorlab-gerring Language Culture Centre in Kununurra, impressed us all with their broad range of activities. For example they have been advancing partnerships with local and state government to develop a language/culture component of the local Indigenous park rangers training program – which will hopefully lead to a tourism component as well. Keep an eye out for that next time you are passing through. There are also plans for a Master-Apprentice style program in the future. Very exciting times in Kununurra.
As well as ‘show and tell’ from the language centres, the language team from AIATSIS filled us in on their acronym-laden activities, AUSTLANG and OLCAP, and strategic plan for the next 10 years. Some people had in fact already used the AUSTLANG database and confirmed what a useful resource it is, and has the potential to be as more data is added. And of course everyone wants OLCAP to come to their region next! Rachel Hendery represented the AustKin project from ANU et al, and received lots of good feedback about developing the project to be even more useful for language groups. These presentations highlighted how useful the State conference can be for regional centres to stay in touch with important projects around the country.
It was also a great treat to have a Sydney company called CuriousWorks come and present ideas for how new media technology might be incorporated into our daily language work: Flickr for a visual wordlist, Youtube for swapping short films made with mobile phones (or check out the much-coveted flip camera www.theflip.com). I am sure many of us left the conference eager to blog, snap and upload the world around us for others to share.
It wasn’t all showing off, however. There were several workshops where we discussed the feasibility of an extra layer of representation and coordination for language centres to help share information amongst ourselves and to lobby government. We also had a look at how language centres have evolved over the past 20 years by taking a ‘mini-audit’ of the current range of activities we perform. While we’ve evolved it seems our funding arrangements haven’t - it was surprising to note that our funding stream has always been funded at only 50% of the amount requested by applications. Delegates also took a few moments to send a letter in support of the recent efforts to bring a National Indigenous Languages Policy onto the agenda of the federal government.
All in all it was great to see how language centres continue to innovate, despite existing, as one delegate put it, on the whiff of a smell of an oily rag. It was personally inspiring to be with people that will just not be stopped, and are so positive and sharing, even in the hardest times.
Last year I wrote about how mobile phones are being used to do "fieldwork at a distance", checking data with consultants, or collecting text messages of writing in endangered languages.
A recent blog post by ESL educator Tom Leverett alerted me to yet another possible technological aid for linguistic data collection and checking, Skype. Many of us know Skype as a way to make cheap (or even free) voice and video phone calls, but Tom points out another use for the software (in association with audio and video software) -- conducting and recording conversations. He reports on an experiment that he carried out with a colleague:
"Thom T., our lab director, who makes it his business to know these things, agreed to place a call, and sure enough, from my office to his, we not only had a call, but also recorded it; furthermore, he bundled up that tiny recording (he had recorded only a few minutes of it - still, he said, it was quite a large bundle) and sent that bundle to me over the text chat function that is right there on Skype ... one can send songs, movies, documents, anything, as one would on an IM or another chat function. But, you can do it, and look the other person in the eye as you do it. Look 'em in the videocam eye, anyway"
So, I thought, what about interviewing consultants on Skype and using it to collect material to be added to a documentary corpus, check grammaticality judgements, socialise with the community, get feedback on materials, or indeed, just about anything that involves two-way communication? There are, however, limitations, as Tom points out. Two of these are bandwidth and interference:
]]> "Speaking only of the limitations, the first is broadband; everyone has to have it. We in our building have T1 cable; my picture was smooth, everything went well. However, before I reached Thom T., I accidentally reached his mother-in-law in Maine ... her picture was not smooth; every time she moved it took a while for the picture to catch up to her. And, finally, there was some interference ... the interference noise was so great and so unpleasant that I had to eventually hang up on her"A third is the size of the recorded data file, meaning that you need plenty of available disk space to save the recorded file, and some decent editing software:
"even the small two-minute bundle he sent me was quite huge; it took up a lot of space ... What was important, he said, was to be able to crop, or cut out only a part of what you had recorded, ... most of which you couldn't even use"
I wonder if any readers have tried this out in their own work.
A second intriguing bit of technology that might, just might, have an application in documentation of endangered languages is Microsoft's Project Natal addition to the Xbox 360 game player announced on 1st June (there is a video demonstration on YouTube). It uses a 3-D system of motion sensitive cameras to detect a player's body movements that can then drive a character on the screen. Just imagine if data from such as system could be captured in a usable format and how this might contribute to research on gesture and the use of space by speakers. Probably pie in the sky though, as the aim of the system is to represent motion in a game, so it could be being done in a quite dumb non-representational way that doesn't serve as a basis for an application to linguistic documentary research. Still, doesn't hurt you to dream.
]]>That's my tabloid journalist headline for what is a serious, some would say momentous, development in the history of the Linguistic Society of America (LSA), namely the adoption last month by the Executive Committee of the LSA of an Ethics Statement [.pdf]. Its Ethics Committee has been working on a draft statement for the past two and a half years, and engaged in consultation within the Society.
There is an article dealing with the issue in this week's Inside Higher Ed, but it focuses on what I believe are two less important aspects of thinking about ethical issues in linguistic research, namely what could be paraphrased as "how to stop linguists from screwing things up" and "how to get round the Institutional Review Board (IRB) process".
"What you want to do is alert researchers to the need to be sensitive. What you don't want to happen is to go through research blindly and cause an uproar and not know that it's happening. The research has to have integrity, but our job is to navigate these issues with compassion. ... linguists should be conscious of all the possible social repercussions of their work and ways that their work is likely to be misinterpreted."
While this is an important dimension of ethics in language research, I would have thought that more significant issues are respect for the people we work with and their direct involvement in and empowerment through negotiations and collaborations about the goals, methods, training, operations, and outcomes of the research project. Protecting ourselves from "making a mess" is only the half of it. (I hasten to point out that Lise may have said all of these things but the journalist chose to pick out just these bits for the audience -- anyone who has been interviewed will know how selective journalists can be.)
On the topic of the IRBs, it quotes Alyson Reed, executive director of the LSA, as saying:
"I think there has been frustration that most IRB's really don't get it when it comes to linguistic research, so this statement is also an educational tool"
This is a particular problem in the US where the IRBs tend to have been influenced by medical research models and hence demand anonymity, destruction of records after the research is completed, etc. Fortunately, we don't have to deal with this kind of structure in the UK (yet), although SOAS has just announced it will be setting up a process and getting serious about research ethics (hopefully it won't turn into a bureaucratic monster). But again, is being able to "educate" IRBs so important in the larger scheme of things when it comes to research ethics?
As the article makes clear, the ethics statement is a first for the LSA, and rather late in the day compared to other social science researchers:
"While anthropologists, psychologists and others have been debating research ethics for years, amid various proposals to amend ethics standards, the discussions have been a bit different at the Linguistic Society of America. The linguistics professors weren't debating changes in an ethics code, but whether to have one in the first place."
This is where my "Australia beats US" comes in. Discussions about research ethics among professional linguists in Australia took place back in the 1980's, and the Australian Linguistic Society (ALS) drew up its Statement on Ethics in 1989. Its guidelines on Linguistic rights of Aboriginal and Islander Communities were established in 1984, exactly 25 years before the LSA! In addition, one of the most powerful documents [.pdf] setting out research ethics guidelines in indigenous studies was published by the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies in 2000 (at SOAS we consider it so significant that we provide a copy to everyone who attends our training courses).
So, the LSA is catching up, but I personally think that their just released "Ethics Statement" still needs some work. You can comment on it at the LSA Ethics Discussion Blog.
]]>This week's Chronicle of Higher Education has two articles by Peter Monaghan on endangered languages issues. The first is entitled Languages on Life Support: Linguists debate their role in saving the world's endangered tongues (viewable free on line, and includes material from interviews with Nick Evans, Michael Krauss, Richard Rhodes, Noam Chomsky, and myself. Some of the topics covered will be familiar to readers of this blog, like what Monaghan calls "a 'commando style' of recording trip" (something Jane wrote about as Fifo (fly in fly out) fieldwork).
]]> A few of the quotes struck me as remarkable, like Noam Chomsky saying that the loss of a language:"is much more of a tragedy for linguists whose interests are mostly theoretical, like me, than for descriptive linguists who focus on specific languages, since it means the permanent loss of the most relevant data for general theoretical work."
Nick Evans is also quoted as putting a price on documentation of the world's linguistic diversity.
"He has done the math: It costs about half a million dollars to train one qualified graduate student to glean and record enough of a language that it might be recoverable. That $500,000 covers a doctorate and two or three years of postdoctoral work. 'Multiply that by, say, 4,000 languages,' says Evans. 'That's two billion dollars. That's almost just a cut off the edge of a budget, in a lot of places. "
Interestingly, the first newsletter of the Foundation for Endangered Languages, dated 1 May 1995, set a figure of £35,000 (A$ 70,000) for two years work on a language to produce a basic grammar and dictionary, while Chapter 4 of David Crystal's 2000 book Language Death provides a figure of $/£200,000 per year for a full documentation project. Looks like Nick's estimate is somewhere in the middle.
The second article, entitled Another Kind of Language Expert: Speakers, is a bit shorter and discusses training courses and revitalisation programmes involving native speakers, including mention of the summer school in Ghana that SOAS staff and students were involved in last year (along with scholars from other institutions), and Ken Hale's work on recovery of Wampanoag with local linguists and activists (such as Jessie Little Doe, who isn't mentioned by name, however).
It is good to see that these issues are getting an airing in a general academic journal such as this.
]]>AIATSIS Research Symposium
Date: Friday, 26 June 2009
Venue: Visions Theatre, National Museum of Australia, Canberra
Time: 9:00am – 5:15pm, followed by a reception at AIATSIS
The symposium will bring together Australia's leading experts in bilingual education and practitioners in Northern Territory Indigenous schools. Bilingual educators, linguists, educationalists, policy makers and prominent Indigenous specialists have been invited to deliver presentations in response to this recent policy initiative, thus providing a timely forum for debate.
Confirmed speakers include:
Mr. Tom Calma, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner and Race Discrimination Commissioner
Prof. Joseph Lo Bianco, University of Melbourne
Dr. Jane Simpson, Universtiy of Sydney
Dr. Patrick McConvell, Australian National University
Dr. Josephine Caffery, Australian Catholic University
Dr. Brian Devlin, Charles Darwin University
Representatives from Northern Territory communities affected by the recent policy change in the NT.
Interested parties are welcome to register to attend. The registration fee is $80, which includes catering for lunch, morning and afternoon teas, and the evening reception at AIATSIS. Places are limited, so please register as soon as possible.
Further information and registration information please visit the news section of the AIATSIS website.
]]>The researchers are Sally Treloyn (CDU); Allan Marett; Andrew Dowding, Ngarluma Aboriginal Corporation
Project Summary
This project makes a major contribution to the community in which it is based by developing an appropriate and efficient model for cultural maintenance and regeneration through repatriation, recording, documentation, and digital dissemination. National benefit derives from the development of a model to preserve and sustain endangered cultural knowledges associated with song and dance, and a pre‑emptive strategy for the recovery of almost extinct traditions. National benefit also derives from establishing Australia at the forefront of international efforts to safeguard intangible cultural heritages, by revealing how access to recordings via digital platforms contributes to cultural maintenance and regeneration.
Work continues on the Wunderkammer software package, which makes electronic dictionaries available on mobile phones. A new version of the package, with new features and bug fixes, is available from the Wunderkammer website: http://www.pfed.info/wksite/
We'll be presenting the Wunderkammer software and talking about some of the dictionaries that use it on 1 June 4pm to 5.30pm in Eastern Avenue Seminar Room 119, Sydney Uni. If you're in Sydney, come along.
]]>Dear friends and supporters,
After 5 years working on Ngapartji Ngapartji, building the language website [and see blogpost] and touring the show, we have the opportunity to engage with the people who can help move the issue of Indigenous languages forward in leaps and bounds. Currently, without any supportive Indigenous languages policy at a federal level we are left with a culture of fragmented and unspoken policy that prioritises English at the expense of Indigenous languages.
There is a long history of campaigning and lobbying for Indigenous languages in Australia, with some successes, and periods of regression. Hopefully Australia is emerging from a particularly unsupportive period in the last 15 - 20 years. At the end of June we will make our contribution to that process by going to Canberra to talk to the Ministers for Indigenous Affairs, Education and the Arts to talk about the need for a long term whole-of-Government strategy on Indigenous languages and a National Indigenous Languages Policy.
We would love to be able to present each of the Ministers with a pile of letters from individuals and organisations about why it is so important, and why the Australian government needs to provide national leadership on indigenous languages - NOW OR NEVER.
Please take the time to write a letter - handwritten or typed, with or without letter-head - and send it to us by the 10th of June. You can email them to alexATngapartji.org, or post them to Ngapartji Ngapartji, P0 Box 2765, Alice Springs NT 0871.
You could include references to the importance of Indigenous languages
It's going to make a big difference too, if we can demonstrate to them the reach and difference that this one area of policy could make. We look forward to being able to place your letter directly in the hand of the Minister who can make a difference.
Alex Kelly
Creative Producer, Ngapartji Ngapartji
The financial difficulties currently facing the world's economies are having an impact on funding and support for research on endangered languages in various ways. (I heard the current situation referred to in Australia last month as The GFC ("Global Financial Crisis"), an acronym that I initially confused with The BFG (as a Roald Dahl fan) and that doesn't seem to have much purchase outside Australia -- even Wikipedia is taking the G out of GFC.)
Here are some of the signs:
Things look a bit gloomy for the next year or so, however there is some good news. The grants from the Endangered Languages Documentation Programme that is administered by SOAS have not been affected as the funding base was established by a commitment from Arcadia (formerly the Lisbet Rausing Charitable Fund) back in 2002. In fact, under new arrangements recently negotiated with Arcadia, ELDP's budget end date has now been extended until 2016, some four years later than originally anticipated. There are two grant cycles this year: the second cycle of grant applications opens on Friday 15 May, with a closing date of 3rd August (see here for details).
]]>As I reported back in October 2007, the European Science Foundation has been working on a project called EuroBABEL(standing for "Better Analyses Based on Endangered Languages") as part of the EUROCORES collaborative research infrastructure. The main goal of the EuroBABEL is:
"to promote empirical research on underdescribed endangered languages, both spoken and signed, that aims at changing and refining our ideas about linguistic structure in general and about language in relation to cognition, social and cultural organization and related issues in a trans-/multi-disciplinary perspective"
After a complex selection process that involved review by an international expert panel and then negotiations with national funding agencies, ESF has just announced the successful EuroBABEL projects:]]>
Alor-Pantar languages: origins and theoretical impact
(funded by AHRC, NSF, NWO)
Project Leader: Dr. Marian Klamer, Leiden University, Netherlands
Principal Investigators:
The Kalahari Basin area: a Sprachbund on the verge of extinction
(funded by DFG, ESRC, FIST, NWO)
Project Leader: Professor Tom Güldemann, Humboldt-Universität, Berlin, Germany
Principal Investigators:
Associated Partner:
Ob-Ugric languages: conceptual structures, lexicon, constructions, categories - An innovative approach to creating descriptive resources for Khanty and Mansi
(funded by AKA, DFG, FWF, OTKA)
Project Leader: Professor Elena Skribnik, Ludwig-Maximilian-Universität, Germany
Principal Investigators:
Associated Partners:
Referential Hierarchies in Morphosyntax: description, typology, diachrony
(funded by AHRC, DFG, NSF, SNSF)
Project Leader: Dr. Katharina Haude, Universität zu Köln, Germany
Principal Investigators:
Endangered sign languages in village communities
(funded by AHRC, DFG, NSF, NWO)
Project Leader: Professor Ulrike Zeshan, University of Central Lancashire, United Kingdom
Principal Investigators:
Associated Partner:
This is an impressive array of researchers, countries, languages and topics that are included in the EuroBABEL initiative. I am particularly pleased that documentation and analysis of signed languages has been funded.
There will be a EuroBABEL launch conference in Berlin 11-13 September at which project teams will meet to discuss with each other their plans for research, networking, dissemination and training activities. The SOAS Endangered Languages Project has been invited to attend the launch conference, along with representatives of the NSF-NEH-Smithsonian Documenting Endangered Languages initiative.
Congratulations to all the project teams!
]]>Gayarragi, winangali, a new Gamilaraay/Yuwaalaraay language resource, is now available. Click on the picture to download.
Gayarragi, winangali is an interactive multimedia resource for the Gamilaraay and Yuwaalaraay languages of northern New South Wales, Australia. It is aimed at language learners at all levels, and anyone interested in these languages. It contains extensive language material, including audio. The main features are:
Gayarragi, winangali was compiled by John Giacon and David Nathan. It was launched on Monday 23 March by Professor Larissa Behrendt, to an enthusiastic audience of nearly 80 people, including many Gamilaraay and Yuwaalaraay people, at the Koori Centre, University of Sydney. It was produced as a CD-ROM but is also available by download (about 200MB, Win XP/Vista). It is free for individuals and Gamilaraay Yuwaalaraay organisations. Go to http://yuwaalaraay.org and follow the link, or directly to the Gayarragi, winangali page at http://lah.soas.ac.uk/projects/gw/. ]]>