Farewell to Mr. Brown

[Jessica Denniss]

Wangka Maya Language Centre is very sad to farewell a wonderful man and an
outstanding language consultant.  Alexander (‘Sandy’) Brown, a Ngarla man,
passed away on the 22 October 2010. Sandy was passionate about language
work, and spent countless hours over the last 25 years of his life working
with linguists to record his native language, and also to work on other
languages of the Pilbara region of which he had knowledge. Sandy has been a
great supporter of Wangka Maya over the whole time it has been in existence.
He worked closely with linguists Brian Geytenbeek, Alan Dench and more
recently Torbjorn Westerlund, producing high quality language materials that
are of huge value and interest to linguists, community members and the
general public. Over the past year Sandy was a regular visitor to the
language centre, often coming in to have a cup of tea and a chat, and to
check up on what we were doing. He never had to be chased to do language
work, and genuinely enjoyed putting his mind to our sometimes obtuse and
bizarre lines of questioning. In fact, he was often able to anticipate the
next question, and offer sentences that perfectly completed the paradigm we
were looking for. He refused payment for his work, considering it his duty
to pass on his knowledge to the next generation. He also had an
understanding and appreciation for linguistic interest in his language, and
supported the production of academic materials. He was held in the highest
esteem by his community and we will miss him very much.
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