Transient Languages & Cultures

Early this morning, a delivery of audio files was quietly sent from Paradisec's local server at the University of Sydney to permanent near-line tape storage at the Australian Partnership for Advanced Computing in Canberra. This happens on many days, as you might imagine, but what makes today's delivery special, was that somewhere in that bunch of files was our 2000th archived hour of audio.

Moreover, we will soon be celebrating five years of operations, in which case, 2000 hours might not seem so impressive - it's just 400 hours per year after all - but we at Paradisec are very proud of our collection. Especially given that just about everything here is done on a shoestring budget and there have been some lengthy hiatuses of funding lately.

Speaking of which, this may be an opportune time to mention that we are always amenable to generous donations from people wishing to sponsor the digitisation and preservation of a collection of data. See our website for more details.

So, just which file was the lucky 2000th hour? Well, we can't really be sure, but we do know that it was among a collection of Mark Durie's research into the dialects of Aceh, an area that was devastated by the Indian Ocean tsunami of Boxing Day 2006.

To help us celebrate both these milestones, Mark has kindly written a small piece for us about Aceh's dialects, his research of them and the importance of preserving the collection. He has also allowed a small portion of one of these recordings to be posted with this piece, which you can download here.

Two great supporters of Australian Indigenous language work died recently. Dr R. Marika was widely known and well-respected for her passionate advocacy for Yolngu languages, and the importance of maintaining them and using them in schools. She was only 49. Short obituaries are on the web from ANTar, and The Australian.

J. Jampin Jones died yesterday. In 1998, as a middle-aged man, after many years of hard manual work, and in the midst of the grief and the havoc wrought by kidney failure on many of his family, he went to Batchelor College to learn to read and write Warumungu. An astonishing thing to do, and his charm, enthusiasm, and undauntedness gave hope and encouragement to other Warumungu students. Those of us studying Warumungu were helped immensely by his gift for explaining meanings, and by his belief that it was a good thing we were doing together.

We honour them both.

LingFest HQ (aka Transient Building) is stacked with boxes of large blue bags paid for by publishers in return for inserting flyers (that's why the bags are so large). You could probably eat the bags, they're so enviro-friendly. 30 keen student volunteers are zooming around in between (we/they hope) doing brilliantly on their exams, (they have set up a Googlegroups for coordinating volunteers with an online spreadsheet and forms that beat hands-down our Open Conference Systems/Events Pro conference site (I like the idea of OCS, I liked the old version (used in the Papuan Languages workshop successfully), but the implementation of this one at the hands of an inexperienced central IT crew..., sigh and super sigh). And the organising committee is pondering deep questions such as - is it possible to have a book launch without alcohol? (Answer: of course not - this is Australia, we Don't DO teetotalism).

The program for the Austronesian Formal Linguistics Association (Marshallese, Malagasy, Indonesian, Seediq, Samoan...and more), is here.. The program for the Papuan languages workshop is here (One, Fas, Oksapmin...). The program for the International Lexical Functional Grammar Conference is here (Gunwinyguan, Turkish, Sinhala, Welsh..). Other programs include those for the Australian Linguistics Society [.pdf], and for the Applied Linguistics Association of Australia [.xls].

You can find out all about the units on offer for the Australian Linguistics Institute here [.pdf]. Units of particular interest to Transient Languages readers include:

[ from Peter K. Austin, Endangered Languages Academic Programme, Linguistics Department, SOAS]

The recently established Fondation Chirac in collaboration with the Musée du quai Branly and Unesco is organising a one-day public event to be held on Monday 9th June in Paris called "SOROSORO pour que vivent les langues du monde!" (SOROSORO long live the languages of the world! ). Sorosoro in the Araki language of Vanuatu means ‘breath, word, language’. The event will highlight the current situation of language diversity and endangered languages and includes presentations by linguists from France, Gabon, Guatemala, UK and Vanuatu.

The programme begins at 3pm in the Claude Levi-Strauss Theatre at the Museum and includes the following presentations (my translations of the French original):

The Australian Computational and Linguistics Olympiad (OzCLO) is a linguistics competition aimed at high school students from years 9 to 12. The state rounds will be held at University of Sydney, and University of Melbourne on the afternoon of June 25th 2008, with the national round to be held (in each location) on August 6th 2008. OzCLO will consist of teams of up to three students.

Target student population:
The program is designed for students from years 9 to 12. Any secondary school student who enjoys the sample problems on the web site is a potential contestant. High School students don't typically know what linguistics and computational linguistics are, so they probably won't know if they are interested until they try the problems. However, students who like languages, maths, computers, and the natural sciences are most likely to be interested in this competition.

Information sessions:
Information sessions for students and teachers who are interested in the competition will be held at each location. At these sessions we will explain the details of the competition, introduce the fields of linguistics, computational linguistics, and language technology, and give tips for solving sample problems.

Sydney: Wednesday 11th June 4:00 – 6:00pm at University of Sydney
Contact Elwin Cross (elwin AT ozclo.org.au)

Melbourne: Wednesday 4th June 4:00 – 6:00pm at University of Melbourne
Contact Saya Ike (saya AT ozclo.org.au)

Competition Format:
The State round on June 25th 2008 will be a two and a half hour session, and the successful competitors will go to the National Round, which will also be held in Sydney and Melbourne on August 6th 2008.
Although this is a team competition format, individual students are also encouraged to join. They will not be disadvantaged in any way.

Registration:
Registration in the competition is free. The registration form can be downloaded from the website ( HYPERLINK "" www.ozclo.org.au). The participating students will be contacted through a nominated teacher to protect their privacy.

The competition is being sponsored by HCSNet, the Universities of Sydney and Melbourne, Macquarie University, the Australasian Language Technology Association, and the Australian Linguistics Society.

[ from Peter K. Austin, Linguistics Department, SOAS]

A series of five documentaries on languages is scheduled to air on OBE (Original Black Entertainment) TV in the UK starting on 13th April 2008. OBE TV is a freeview 24 hour Channel on Sky Digital Channel 204 with a primary target audience from the African, Caribbean and other ethnic communities in the UK and Ireland, Europe, North Africa and beyond. OBE TV reaches over 7.8 million satellite subscribers in the UK and Ireland alone.

The documentary series is called World – Speaking in Tongues and the episodes are.....

It's been almost two years since the first Papuanists' Workshop and now it's time for another. The linguistics departments at Sydney University and in RSPAS at the ANU are organising the second Papuanists' Workshop. It will be held on Saturday and Sunday 28-29 June 2008 at the University of Sydney, right before Lingfest gets started. Anyone who has an interest in Papuan languages and linguistics is invited to come and present a paper or just listen to other people's papers and join in the discussion.

Papers should be 20 or 40 mins long and on a topic related to Papuan languages or linguistics. We're hoping to have one day dedicated to talks on the theme of 'giving back to the community', making practical use of our linguistic research for the benefit of the community by such means as developing orthographies and producing educational materials. Talks related to topics of this sort are especially welcome.

For more information on the conference, see the conference website, which is being constantly updated.

The closing date for abstracts is 20 April 2008. To submit a title and abstract for a paper or to register, e-mail James McElvenny at james.mcelvenny at arts.usyd.edu.au

A theatre production by Ngapartji Ngapartji (who run the interesting online Pitjantjatjara course I posted about in 2006) is having a sell-out run at the Belvoir St Theatre in Sydney, with amazing reviews (links here) (e.g. The most important Australian work to inhabit our theatres for a long time. AussieTheatre.com).

(Information: Belvoir St Theatre on (02) 9699 3444 or www.belvoir.com.au | www.sydneyfestival.org.au)

[Update 4/2/08 - this has led to more publicity for the plight of Indigenous languages, e.g. here on the ABC]

They are also having a public forum on Australian Indigenous languages Can you say 'how do you do' at Uluru? together with Big hART.

WHEN: 6-7pm, Wednesday January 30th 2008
WHERE: Belvoir Street Theatre. Belvoir St, Surry Hills, Sydney
HOSTED BY: Prof. Larissa Behrendt - Research Director, Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning, UTS

The Endangered Languages Academic Programme at SOAS is holding a Workshop:

Issues in Language Revitalisation and Maintenance
Saturday 9 February, 2008

Convenors: Peter K. Austin, Julia Sallabank

The theme of this workshop is issues in language revitalisation and maintenance. The goal of the workshop is to highlight and discuss theoretical and practical issues in revitalising and maintaining endangered languages, and especially issues of goals, models and methods for revitalisation of threatened languages. Among the issues to be considered will be:

1. What are the aims/goals of language revitalisation?

2. What part should teaching play in a revitalisation programme?

3. What is the role of media and technology in language revitalisation?

4. Are there limits to the applicability and transferability of models of language revitalisation?

Speakers include Viv Edwards (Reading), Meili Fang and David Nathan (SOAS), Lenore Grenoble (Chicago), Susan Penfield (Arizona)and Suzanne Romaine (Oxford).

For further details and a downloadable registration form go here. Registration closes on 1st February 2008.

[From our legally permanent resident blogger in the UK, Peter K. Austin, Endangered Languages Academic Programme, SOAS]

One of my prized possessions after having lived in the UK for five years now is a “Pass Notification Letter” which I received on 30th October 2007 when I sat for the Life in the UK Test administered by the Border and Immigration Service of the Home Office. The letter states:

“Following your test today in knowledge of life in the United Kingdom this is to certify that you have reached the level required for the purposes of obtaining indefinite leave to remain … Your success in this test also demonstrates that your level of competence in English meets the required standard for naturalisation or indefinite leave to remain. No further proof of this is needed.”

I had to sit the test because my work permit ended on 10th November and I wanted to apply for “indefinite leave to remain”, ie. permanent residence (rather than apply for a further 5 year work permit extension). Since April this year everyone applying to stay in the UK or become a naturalised citizen has to sit and pass the test, or else take a certified ESOL course. The test is administered by computer and has 24 questions that must be answered within 45 minutes – a pass of at least 75% is required. I bought a Life in the UK Test Study Guide (which says on the cover it is “the essential study guide for British citizenship & settlement tests, over 100,000 copies sold”) for £7.99 and boned up on the five chapters (A Changing Society, UK Today: A Profile, How the United Kingdom is Governed, Everyday Needs, Employment) and took the 10 sample tests in the back. Feeling apprehensive but somewhat prepared I paid my £34 fee and joined 25 other hopeful applicants in the basement of my local registered test centre where we were shouted at by a Test Authoriser that we were “under examination conditions – if anyone looks at another person’s computer screen they will be removed from the test room, reported immediately to the Home Office for cheating which is sufficient grounds for deportation”. Thanks, just what we all needed. Anyway, I managed to answer enough questions correctly and passed.

So what does the test actually test?

The Canadian territory of Nunavut, created in 1999, has a population of 26,665, of whom 85% claim Inuit identity (2001 Census data). Of these approximately 85% claim to speak the Inuit language at home. (ibid. "Inuit Language" subsumes two major dialect groupings: Inuinnaqtun in the west and Inuktitut in the East.) With their huge political majority and their geographical isolation, the Inuit ought to have no trouble maintaining their language, but the challenges they face demonstrate that minority language maintenance is a difficult process, even when the odds appear to be extremely favourable.

The government of Nunavut has recently introduced two language-related bills, which have now progressed to second reading in the legislative assembly. The first, Bill 6, is an official languages act which establishes Inuit Language, French and English as official languages of the territory. The second, Bill 7, is an Innuit language protection act that seeks to promote the maintenance of the Inuit Language.

Prof. Ian Martin, language policy consultant to the Nunavut government and to the Inuit organization, NTI (Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated), presented his assessment of the stituation in a talk at Glendon College of York University this past week.

As I was waiting for the tram the other day in İstanbul I spotted an ad for Sony digital cameras on the side of a bus. The text of the ad ran:

Herkesin bir Sony Cybershot'ı var.

This could be glossed as:

Herkes-in Everyone-3p.possessor

bir one

Sony Cybershot-ı Sony Cybershot-3p.possessed

var exist

The sentence can be translated idiomatically into English as 'Everyone has a Sony Cybershot.' The term 'Sony Cybershot', a trademark used to identify a particular model of Sony camera, has clearly been coined in English, from 'cyber-', a prefix normally used to describe something that relates to computers or other modern digital technology (and which sounds really cool), plus 'shot', meaning a photograph. This trademark could be pronounced in several different ways, depending on which variety of English it is said in. But the text of the original Turkish ad provides a hint as to what pronunciation the advertisers intended.

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.

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

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 of the Agenda for Social Justice and Native Title Reports at which he and Pat Anderson (co-author of the Wild-Anderson report Ampe Akelyernemane Meke Mekarle “Little Children are Sacred”) will be speaking.
Tuesday 3 July 2007, 10 for 10.30am
Turner Hall, Building B - Ultimo College, MaryAnn Street, Ultimo NSW 2007
To attend, contact asap Janet Drummond (JanetDrummond AT humanrights.gov.au)

The second is on on Australian Indigenous participation at a recent meeting of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. As well as Tom Calma, guest speakers will include:

Jason Field, Director of Research and Policy Development, NSW Aboriginal Land Council
Dr Ngaire Brown, Menzies School of Health Research
Mr Neil Gillespie, CEO of Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement

Thursday 5 July 2007, 4:30 - 6pm,
Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, Level 8, 133 Castlereagh St, Sydney (Piccadilly Tower).
To attend, contact asap Emilie Priday (emiliepriday AT humanrights.gov.au)

Sociolingo's Africa is a general blog which includes posts about languages (the writer's based in Mali but draws together material from across Africa). There are some interesting posts on linguistics, literacy - including mother tongue language education. So much seems so familiar. Thanks to this blog I've learned about Litcam, Google, and UNESCO’s Institute for Lifelong Learning Launch “The Literacy Project” and of practical handbooks which looks it might be useful in our region: Handbook for Literacy and Non-formal Education Facilitators in Africa, and its predecessor, designed for use in Asia, Handbook for Non-formal Education Facilitators.

Other blogs I've come across recently:
• Will Owen's blog Aboriginal art and culture: an American eye - has extensive and thoughtful reviews of art shows, books and films related to Australian Indigenous ethnography. (thanks David!)

• the blog of a graduate student, David Kaufman, who includes glossed texts of different Northern and Central American languages in the blog, as well as discussions of the language.

• The Lexique pro blog has been created for information sharing on Lexique Pro which has the potential to be a useful tool for dictionary-makers and publishers. (Thanks to a posting by David Ker of the Nyungwe Project - Mozambique on the Lexicography list)

• Fulbright journey to Turtle Island ( USA) is the travel-blog of Samia Goudie, an Australian Bundjalung / Mununjali woman visiting the United States on a Fulbright Scholarship to find out about "inter-generational trauma, healing and resilience in Indigenous communities". So far, mostly travel, but some stuff on work with Native Americans.

Thanks to prowling around the web, we've come across Vakaivosavosa, a blog about Fiji and the Pacific, life, history and culture, which has lots of links to material on the Pacific and other blogs.

AND - how cool is this.. TLaC's first citation in a blog about a minority language in that minority language! o chemeco d'as parolas (en aragonés) is written in Aragonese, spoken in Spain. The writer comments on the applicability of Joe Blythe's post on video recording, and the blog has links to a number of blogs in Aragonese.

We'd like to find blogs written in languages of our region - send us the URLs!

I got inspired to preen our blogroll, by following up blogrolls on other linguistics blogs (notably Language Log). This meant hours of pleasure going through musings, dead blogs, frozen blogs, (very!) personal blogs, e-learning blogs exhorting us to use blogs in teaching, e-learning blogs exhorting not to use them, pictures of cats, gardens, parrots, business blogs, meta-blogs..

The results?

The Central Australian Ngumbin-Yapa languages Warlpiri and Gurindji feature in this entry, together with obituaries for a Nyamal lawman, and an anthropologist who studied Maori oral literature.

if you want to spend three years thinking and writing about languages and cultures of Australia and the Asia-Pacific region ...
Nod to Ethics committee: HEALTH WARNING: and you're not ESPECIALLY worried about whether you'll find a interesting job afterwards....

... applications for the 2007 APA/UPA scholarships at the University of Sydney are now open. Information and an application can be downloaded from:
http://www.usyd.edu.au/ro/training/postgraduate_awards.shtml

The latest Ogmios newsletter has just appeared as a pdf - lots of information about what's happening around the world, including excellent links to work on Indigenous languages around the world as well as reprints of interesting articles (local plug: they've reprinted Nicolas Rothwell's rave review of Allan Marett's book on Australian Aboriginal music) .

Back issues of the newsletters are at FEL's website. To get the current newsletter you need to be a subscriber - it's not very expensive - and they're doing a terrific job.