There are 3 messages totalling 127 lines in this issue.

Topics of the day:

  1. haida Dictionary
  2. New Installment of Dictionary Series
  3. Rebirth Of Language

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Date:    Mon, 27 Jun 2005 11:02:25 -0700
From:    Andre Cramblit <andrekar@NCIDC.ORG>
Subject: haida Dictionary

Dictionary preserves language of the Haida

By ERIC FRY
JUNEAU EMPIRE
http://www.juneauempire.com/stories/062605/sta_20050626030.shtml

Scholar John Enrico has compiled the first comprehensive Haida
dictionary, the fruit of years of living among the last generation of
people who spoke the language regularly at home.

About 40 people speak Haida today, not all fluently, Enrico said.

The Haida Dictionary was recently published by Sealaska Heritage
Institute in Juneau and the Alaska Native Language Center at the
University of Alaska Fairbanks.

At $279, the two-volume, 2,180-page set is not the sort of book you pull
off the shelf when you want to know the Haida word for "dog."

It's a scholarly work from which academic linguists may further examine
the relationship of Haida to other language families, a point of
dispute. Educators also can develop teaching materials from it, said
Tom Alton, editor at the Alaska Native Language Center.

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Date:    Mon, 27 Jun 2005 11:51:00 -0700
From:    Andre Cramblit <andrekar@NCIDC.ORG>
Subject: New Installment of Dictionary Series

Fifth title for picture dictionary series

Issue 83
http://www.nit.com.au/thearts/story.aspx?id=3D5231

IAD Press, has published the fifth title in its valuable Picture
Dictionary series - this time in the Warumungu language, spoken in
Tennant Creek and its surrounding communities.

=93Children and learners should sit down with old people and learn to
speak language from them,=94 said the Warumungu contributors to the
picture dictionary.

=93Old people hold this language, Warumungu, for the young generations.
Our children will learn our language and then keep it strong. Language
teachers can use the picture dictionary in their classes. Learners can
learn words for all sorts of things: family, country, plants and
animals. Later they will know their language.=94

Warumungu people have worked together with linguists since 1982 to
develop a spelling system that matches the sounds of the Warumungu
language as closely as possible.

A CD of readings by Dianne Nampin Stokes of a broad selection of the
words and sentences in the Warumungu Picture Dictionary is included
with the book.

=95 Compiled by Samantha Disbray with Warumungu speakers ($29.95 =
including
CD, IAD Press).

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Date:    Mon, 27 Jun 2005 11:54:40 -0700
From:    Andre Cramblit <andrekar@NCIDC.ORG>
Subject: Rebirth Of Language

Rebirth of language

By SIMON BEVILACQUA
19jun05
http://www.themercury.news.com.au/common/story_page/ 
0,5936,15658081%255E3462,00.html

NEW life has been breathed into the Tasmanian Aboriginal language.

After more than five years' research and analysis, the Tasmanian
Aboriginal Centre has given the Tasmanian community a glimpse of its
language, known as palawa kani.

The language has been used on interpretation boards on the summit of Mt
Wellington, or kunanyi as the mountain is known to Aborigines.

One panel states, "milaythina nika milaythina-mana" -- "This land is our
country".

In the late 1990s, the TAC embarked on a bold attempt to rejuvenate an
Aboriginal language.

Researchers scanned historical references, including journals of the
d'Entrecasteaux expedition.

There were thought to be a dozen or more Aboriginal languages in
Tasmania and even more dialects. The language program has produced an
amalgam of the languages.

There are no capital letters in the language.

TAC spokeswoman Trudy Maluga said the Aboriginal community decided to
release parts of the new language only when it benefitted the
Aboriginal community.

"We have taken ownership of our language," Ms Maluga said.

"This is a way of beating assimilation."

Ms Maluga said many within the Aboriginal community could speak palawa
kani fluently.

Many Tasmanian towns feature Aboriginal names including Murdunna,
Taroona, Teepookana and Nubeena.

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End of ENDANGERED-LANGUAGES-L Digest - 24 Jun 2005 to 27 Jun 2005 (#2005-55)
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