Over the weekend I was asked to help in a conversation between two family groups from Central Australia who were in a Sorry Camp. One family spoke Ngaanyatjarra and the other Arrernte from the Alice Springs area. With both parties speaking several Indigenous languages, English was the only language they had in common.
The Ockham’s Razor program on ABC Radio National recently had a program looking at the variety of Indigenous languages in Australia. Assistant Professor Claire Bowern from the Linguistics Department at Yale University spoke about the languages of the Aboriginal people of Australia, how and where we used Aboriginal words, and what that tells us of our (whitefella) interaction with Aboriginal Australia during colonisation.
At the time of European settlement, about 250 distinct languages were spoken in Australia. About the same number of languages are spoken in Europe today. But the level of diversity in the families is very different. There are five language families in Europe.
In comparison, the Australian continent was much more diverse: there are 28 different families on the Australian mainland, and that does not include Tasmania or the Eastern Torres Strait Islands. There isn’t just one Aboriginal language, or one language family even; so when someone asks what to call their boat in Aboriginal, that’s kind of like asking what to call it in European. None of these languages are related to anything in Papua-New Guinea or South-East Asia either.
The transcript and audio can be found here.
You can find some of Claire’s work on an extinct Aboriginal language, Nhirrpi, here. It is from North East South Australia, a place I used to call home. The Yandruwandha people, though spread around Australia currently have this country under Native Title claim.
If you like this post and what else you see on the blog please subscribe by RSS feed (the orange button) or by email. Visit my subscription page.
Tagged as:
aboriginal,
Arrernte,
culture,
Indigenous,
language,
Ngaanyatjarra,
radio
All wildlife including birds play an integral part in Aboriginal culture from dreamtime stories to the present. Out here I identify a bird, go to the back of my Ngaanyatjarra dictionary where I can look up the scientific name and find the name in language. The dictionary may then have a brief description. I can then sit down with some of the elders and be told of its importance to their culture.
However we all can’t do that.
Bob Gosford over at The Northern Myth has just written about four terrific posters of central Australian bird knowledge. Each poster is from a different language group and has a picture of the bird, name and a brief story of it’s importance in both language and English to the Aboriginal group represented by the poster. Several of Bob’s pictures have made it into the posters.
The posters are from the Cultural Signs of Central Australia project being run at Charles Darwin University.
The project documents cultural signs in Central Australian Aboriginal languages. These are the social and environmental indicators used by Aboriginal people in Central Australia. For example there are signs that tell people when food is available, predict the weather, warn people of bad events and signal when certain kin are coming. Much of this knowledge is in danger of being lost as Aboriginal society rapidly changes. Many Aboriginal people are concerned that such knowledge should be documented and that resources should be created to assist in the teaching of this knowledge.
The Willie Wagtail pictured at the top of the post is from the bird poster “Birds that show people things” in the Kaytetye language which is spoken around Barrow Creek.
If you like this post and what else you see on the blog please subscribe by RSS feed (the orange button) or by email. Visit my subscription page.
Tagged as:
aboriginal,
birds,
Central Australia,
culture,
Indigenous,
knowledge,
language,
stories,
wildlife,
Willie Wagtail
- launch of a new Aboriginal language CD this week, to help revitalise Indigenous languages. http://bit.ly/JHxx3
- Head of Northern Territory Emergency Response from answering media questions. http://bit.ly/TEoJi
- Let us run croc hunting safaris: Aboriginal group – (means less crocs available to eat tourists! ) http://bit.ly/eZEhg
- $10 million for research into how Indigenous communities can reduce carbon emissions by controlling fires on savannas http://bit.ly/1LynvM
I read a large amount of information each week on indigenous health and affairs. There is no way I can blog about it all. Many of the links I place on Twitter where I can be found as @BiteTheDust.
I will regularly compile these links and place on the blog under the category of Indigenous News Update.
If you like this post and what else you see on the blog please subscribe by RSS feed (the orange button) or by email. Visit my subscription page.
Tagged as:
aboriginal,
carbon emissions,
crocodile,
emergency response,
Indigenous,
Intervention,
language,
Northern Territory,
NT,
safaris
