Farewell to Mr. Brown

[Peter Austin]

Thanks Jessica for sharing this. He was a remarkable person.

My blog post about Sandy published last week can be read at http://bit.ly/a7YuSp

Best wishes,
Peter

On 10 November 2010 02:48, Jessica Denniss <jessicadenniss at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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.



-- 
Prof Peter K. Austin
Marit Rausing Chair in Field Linguistics
Department of Linguistics, SOAS
Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square
London WC1H 0XG
United Kingdom

web: http://www.hrelp.org/aboutus/staff/index.php?cd=pa