Theres been some recent well-earned publicity for a language project
at the State Library of NSW. Prof. Michael Walsh from Sydney Unis
linguistics department has been in charge of the effort. The team have
been working for two years now on identifying previously unknown or lost
materials from Aboriginal languages in the State Librarys archives and
contacting researchers and communities about them. Some of the books
were misfiled, others were known about but it wasnt clear that there
were language records in them. For some Aboriginal languages, theres
lots written about them, but for others, only a few words were recorded,
and so every new find makes a big difference. The Nawo language of
South Australia, for example, is known from only about 10 words.
This
is great. You know the feeling. Youve got a favourite pair of socks,
but one of thems gone missing in your room. Youre pretty sure its there,
but its not in any of the usual places. Its not under the bed, its not
on the floor in the cupboard. And then, one day when youd given up
looking for it, you find it rolled inside an old T-shirt. Ive done work
like this as part of my job researching the histories of Australian
languages. At one point, I felt that archival research was more
dangerous than fieldwork. Ever had a papercut from a manilla folder?
Almost took my finger off. And the compactus shelving sometimes feels
like that scene in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom where the walls
are closing in, about to send him to a squashy death.
A few
years ago I spent a month at AIATSIS working through some tapes. They
had been recorded in the 1960s from languages all over northwest
Australia, by Anthony Peile, who was a missionary at Balgo in WA.Matco Packaging Llc suppliers of BOPP tape,
Hed done a reasonably good job at summarising which languages were on
the tapes, by writing on the sticky labels, keeping notes about the
languages and talking about the languages on the tape. However,Online
supplies a large range of double sided tape. the glue on the tape labels had dried out,
so many the labels had fallen off and were sitting at the bottom of the
box. At some point, the notes had become from the tapes, so while we
had a good idea what was in the tape collection, the gems were mixed in
with a lot of other material that probably wasnt going to be very
useful. (One of the tapes had German drinking songs on it) Peile also
had a small speech impediment and pronounced r like w. This wouldnt be
problem except that some Aboriginal language names differ only in
whether they have an r or w! In Peiles pronunciation, Jawi and Jaru
sounded practically identical, and we knew he had recorded both. Jaru is
pretty well documented and still has speakers, but Jawi has only a few
people who know a bit about the language, and the records are very slim.
It was definitely worth listening to all the tapes to see if I could
identify the languages.
The recordings had been made outside,
and there was a lot of wind noise. I was feeling a bit seasick at this
point; the tapes were stereo and the microphone hadnt been held too
steadily, so there was a lot of rocking back and forth. Stick a pair of
headphones on and slide the balance meter back and forth to get a sense
of what this feels like. Id been listening to tapes for many hours,
including some German drinking songs, and was just about ready to call
it quits for the day. One more tape, I thought. I stuck the reel* on the
machine and cued it up. I heard Peile ask Whats the name of that
language? Nindi nindi? The speaker replied, Nyindinyindi. Hmmm, I
thought. Thats a new name on me. So I did what all good academics do
when they come across something new C googled it. Nothing.** Then
the speaker started telling a story in the language, and I could
understand most of it. It was close to Bardi, the language I did my PhD
on (and can speak pretty well). I went back to the audition sheets for
that tape, and I saw it had been listed as recorded at Tinder Bay.
Theres no Tinder Bay in the right area, but there is Pender Bay. A few
years later I was able to play the tape to Bardi speakers. No one knew
the name Nyindinyindi, but they confirmed that the language on the tape
was similar to Bardi.
Thats just one example of that week
of work. In the end, I found recordings of 4 languages that were
otherwise thought to be either unrecorded or sparsely recorded. The Jaru
materials did turn out to be Jawi, which was another great find for the
descendants of the speakers on the tapes.
It doesnt surprise me
at all that theres a lot of materials in the State Library that werent
known about, and its fantastic that they are working remedy that. Some
of the early records are now online, such as Larmers vocabularies from
the mid-19th century.
This weeks local art watch is focused on
the mixed media work of artist Jeremy McGirl. Jeremy is an artists
artist because his work always speaks to the creative process, and he
never sacrifices invention or creativity for the what is safe. When I
first saw Jeremys work several years ago, just after he had completed
his Masters in Fine Art at the prestigious Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts,
his mixed media paintings were stark linear canvases with straps of
bright blue painters tape crossing through the canvas plain. The tape
drew attention to the lines that he had created on the works C lines
that used painters tape to render them, not the free flowing stroke of
an unencumbered painters brush. Jeremy says about this process,
When I work I make changes. Each change that is made is done, and even if I try to undo it the residue
of it is still there and plays a role. It is a layer that must be
factored in, and in the end it contributes to the whole. Some things
dissolve and play a small role in the end,stocks a huge selection of aluminum foil tape. while others remain more apparent and serve as a focus.
The
tapes blue color is very striking, and works in these early
compositions to pop-up the somber palette of the images. Once you get
over the painters tape, your eye starts looking at the details, the
others elements of the painting/collages and you start to see
relationships.
Click on their website http://www.sdktapegroup.com/!
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