Language and Culture in Aboriginal Australia

What are the Australian Aboriginal languages like? How many are there? Where are they spoken? How are they learned by children? Are there dictionaries of Aboriginal languages? What kinds of new language have emerged in the last two hundred years? What is the connection between land, people and language in Aboriginal Australia? How does the use of English disadvantage Aboriginal people?

Language and Culture in Aboriginal Australia offers answers to these questions by providing a series of studies of different aspects of language and culture in different parts of Aboriginal Australia. Subjects include why a young Aboriginal woman in rural Australia might end up pleading guilty to a crime she didn't commit; the picture of 'language ownership' which can be drawn from recent research on land rights; what we know of the first white settlers' attempts to learn the language of the Sydney region; the first dictionaries compiled in South Australia; and how Aboriginal languages are now being used in the media and education.

Language and Culture in Aboriginal Australia is of particular use to teachers and students involved in Aboriginal studies in the upper secondary years and at introductory levels in universities. Its value as an educational resource is enhanced by bibliographical reference, maps, and questions for further discussion at the end of each chapter.

Production Details

• Paperback
• 240mm x 170mm x 15mm
• 250pp
• Released May 2005
• ISBN 9780855752415

Contents

Notes on Linguistic Conventions
Preface
Chapter 1: Languages and Their Status in Aboriginal Australia
Chapter 2: The Structure of Australian Aboriginal Languages
Chapter 3: Language Contact in Early Colonial New South Wales 1788 to 1791
Chapter 4: Tasmanian Aboriginal Language- Old and New Identities
Chapter 5: Bundjalung- Teaching a Disappearing Language
Chapter 6: Language and Culture- Socialisation in a Warlpiri Community
Chapter 7: Out-of-the-ordinary Ways of Using a Language
Chapter 8: Classifying the World in an Aboriginal Language
Chapter 9: Making Dictionaries
Chapter 10: Losing and Gaining a Language- the Story of Kriol in the Northern Territory
Chapter 11: Kriol- the Creation of a Written Language and a Tool of Colonisation
Chapter 12: The Language of Oppression- the Bolden Case, Victoria 1845
Chapter 13: Language and the Law- White Australia v Nancy
Chapter 14: Language and Territoriality in Aboriginal Australia
Chapter 15: New Uses for Old Languages
Contributors

About The Cover

Front cover image: Sand drawing by Kuninyi Nampitjin depicting Tjwatjawa soakwater. Taken from Yarrtji: Six women's stories from the Great Sandy Desert published by Aboriginal Studies Press.