YouTube video by MeidasTouch

YouTube video by バミトントン

12 track album

YouTube video by MeidasTouch

YouTube video by MeidasTouch

I am very happy to be able to say this installment of our Linguistics Jobs interview series is with Margaret Florey of the Resource Network for Linguistics Diversity (RNLD). Margaret is a busy woman, travelling all over Australia to work with Indigenous communities that want to build their capacity to document or revitalise their own languages. I worked at RNLD for a while in 2013, and I’m a big fan of their work. I’m also a big fan of Margaret’s glasses. It’s often Margaret behind the RNLD Twitter account if you have questions for her about her training, her work, or what RNLD do. 1. What did you study at university? I did my undergraduate degree (BA Hons) at the University of Western Australia and I still feel so fortunate for the education and opportunities that opened up for me there. I began in anthropology, taking both general anthropology and Aboriginal anthropology in my first year. I was very lucky to have both Ron and Catherine Berndt as lecturers during those years. I discovered linguistics during my first year, and continued to study both linguistics and anthropology through to honours. Another break came when Alan Dench offered me and two other students the opportunity to go with him to his (then) PhD field site in Onslow, in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. So my first fieldwork experience came as a third year undergraduate. I did three field trips with Alan, and knew that linguistics, language documentation and community language activism was for me. After graduating, I worked for a year in the Aboriginal Sites Department of the WA Museum, and spent much of that time with communities across the Nullabor and in the Western Desert. I was in the desert when I received the news that I’d been offered a scholarship from the East West Center to do a PhD at the University of Hawai'i. That too was a fantastic experience. I had great teachers at UH at a time when the linguistics department was one of three important centres in the world for Austronesian linguistics. 2. What is your job? I’m co-founder of the Resource Network for Linguistic Diversity and Director of the Documenting and Revitalising Indigenous Languages Training Program. That’s a training model that I began creating at RNLD in 2009. The DRIL program is committed to building skills in linguistics, language documentation, and language revitalisation methods so that Indigenous people can work more autonomously in their language projects. We work with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people all around Australia from remote communities to rural centres. In the 5 years since the DRIL program was launched, we’ve worked with more than 500 Indigenous people and about 95 languages. We now have four DRIL trainers, which allows us to reach more people, but we always have a waiting list. We also link up linguists and communities where the communities want to build a relationship with linguists who have worked on their language. That can be a lot of fun! Gavan Breen, Luise Hercus, Stephen Morey, and Tamsin Donaldson have all gone back to communities with DRIL trainers to co-run workshops. 3. How does your linguistics training help you in your job? My linguistic training helps me every day! In our experience, community people value the work that linguists have done in documenting languages and preparing grammars and dictionaries. However, these materials are often impenetrable to people without linguistic training. Our training helps to make existing linguistic materials accessible, and empowers people to begin using linguistic methods themselves to document languages or to prepare resources that can be more widely used for language revitalisation activities. This work is exciting and very moving. We are privileged to be able to work every day with passionate, highly motivated, and very determined people! 4. Do you have any advice you wish someone had given to you about linguistics/ careers/ university? I think I was very fortunate in my training at UWA and at UH and had access to great people who mentored me in my education and career. That has continued throughout my career and I’m grateful for a wonderful network of people who I link with internationally. I think that now it’s possible to advise people that they can choose a career inside academia or in community-based organisations. There are more options! That advice wouldn’t have been available to me early in my career. I’m glad I was able to find such a satisfying pathway. 5. Any other thoughts or comments? I’d encourage people to reach out and ask questions of linguists in different fields. Ask them how they got there, what you might do to get there. Take any opportunity that comes your way! Previously: Interview with a journalist Interview with a data analyst Interview with an interpreter Interview with a high school teacher Interview with a humanitarian aid worker Interview with an editor and copywriter Interview with a Media Language Researcher

There’s been a great discussion on the RNLD mailing list about tongue twisters in Australian languages. Here are some of our favourites: Bardi (via Claire Bowern) Ingoorrooloorrloorroona noorroo ‘they were kindling a fire’ Bininj Kunwok (Kuninjku dialect, via Murray Garde) ŋaŋaŋʔŋaŋa ŋɛʔŋɛʔ yimeŋnganganghnganga ʼngehngehʼ yimeng ‘the grey-crowned babbler said nge’ nge’.’ Burarra (Gun-nartpa, via Margaret Carew) rrugurrgurda jin-digigirrnga ‘the crab crawls around’ Jiwarli (via Peter Austin) Wangkirarrirarringu ‘(we) intend to talk to one another’ Kayardild (from Nick Evans) badaɻaraɻar ‘cuttlefish’ Lardil (via Norvin Richards) Dulbiribiri dulburri burrurri (ɖulbiɹibiɹi ɖulburi bururi) ‘the rain bird picked seaweed up off the ground’ Murrinhpatha (via Rachel Nordlinger) ngunungam-ngem ngarra Kungarlbarl ‘I’m going to Kungarlbarl’ Ngan’gi (via Nicholas Reid) Awafilfilimuy wannimfifilirrmuy  ‘the restless ones are staggering around’ And finally follow this link for a finger fumbler (the sign language equivalent of a tongue twister) from the Iltyem-iltyem Central Australian Sign Language as Eileen Pwerrerl Campbell demonstrates ‘mother eats a cake’ (Eileen is also speaking Anmatyerr in the video).

You may have heard the stats during NAIDOC week: of the 250 or so languages present in Australia at the time of European contact, less than half are still spoken today.  Almost all are in danger of being lost.  These languages, with their strong links to cultural heritage and Indigenous identity, are key to improving the well-being of Indigenous people.

Living Languages (formerly RNLD) - Supporting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in their efforts to preserve and grow their languages. Living Languages supports Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who are working to maintain, revitalise and reclaim their languages.

Successful Clinical Placements in Nursing (New Notes on Nursing) : Elliott BSc(hons) BA RN, Natalie: Amazon.co.uk: Books

Following funding, the UCAN (Urgent Care Access Now) study, undertaken by Keele University and partners, has developed the careLeD tool.