[RNLD] Learning an Australian language

[John Mansfield]

Pitjantjatjara is about the largest learner's guide I've seen. (They also
have a summer course taught in Adelaide, though I see you're thinking more
of autodidacts.)

I haven't seen materials for any language that I would call really
"substantial". The norm is for there to be learner's guide (printed book),
if anything. These are quite good, and would help give you a leg-up if you
had speakers to practice with - but of course you couldn't really learn the
language just from one of the guides.

As for access to speakers - basically just depends where you are. Kriol of
course has the most speakers, spread over the widest area, but I'm not sure
what the attitudes are about non-Ab people learning Kriol.

To Nick's online Bininj Gunwok link I can add this one for Murrinhpatha:
http://langwidj.org/Murrinhpatha-phrasebook/html/

I wish I could practice Murrinhpatha via Facebook, but unfortunately the
language has not made the transition to this medium. Murrinhpatha speakers
write almost exclusively in English/Kriol when they're online.

j

On 8 August 2016 at 18:21, Nicholas Evans <nicholas.evans at anu.edu.au> wrote:

> Here's one good one:
>
> http://bininjgunwok.org.au
>
>
> Bininj Gunwok - kunwok dja mankarre kadberre—our ...
> <http://bininjgunwok.org.au/>
> bininjgunwok.org.au
> You are now at the Bininj Kunwok website. We Aboriginal people are still
> speaking our own languages. We have many names for the different varieties
> of our language ...
>
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Steven Bird <stevenbird1 at gmail.com>
> *Sent:* Thursday, July 28, 2016 11:10:50 AM
> *To:* r-n-l-d
> *Subject:* [RNLD] Learning an Australian language
>
> Suppose you're a non-linguist wanting to learn an Australian language. You
> need substantial pedagogical materials, along with access to speakers.
> You're game to try learning without the help of a formal course or a
> language teacher. Roughly many languages would you have to choose from?
>
> -Steven Bird
>
>
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