matjjin-nehen

Honorifics

Jangari — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 23:39:25 +0000

A letter arrived at the Sydney University Linguistics department just the other day from Japan, and the way the addressee was worded impressed me immensely, as It’s the first time I’ve experienced real-life honorifics.

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Diabolical

Jangari — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 04:06:13 +0000

To continue the saga of the stolen wordlists (see my own posts on this here and here, or Peter Austin’s posts here and here for background) I’ve decided that if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.

It is with that in mind that I give you (over the fold) the Murrinh-Patha crossword puzzle, my own creative work, using Philip M. Parker’s online dictionary of the Murrinh-Patha language.

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A Reminder

Jangari — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 02:19:20 +0000

If you’re reading this, then you still haven’t updated your links.

Matjjin-nehen has moved to its own self-hosted site, and can now be found at matjjin-nehen.com. Also, if you’re reading this via an RSS feed reader, please note that the permanent feed address, irrespective of the address of the blog, is here.

De Bellis Grammaticæ

Jangari — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 08:27:58 +0000

or, On the Grammar Wars

Over the weekend, and extending into the week thus far, a debate has been steadily growing in the blogosphere, both here and in the US, about a controversial set of guidelines for teaching English published last year by the English Teacher’s Association of Queensland (ETAQ).

Before I go on, I might say that the breadth of this debate is such that I barely know where to begin, so logically, I might try beginning at the start.

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4-down, misappropriation of traditional knowledge

Jangari — Tue, 27 May 2008 10:11:44 +0000

Over the weekend, David Nash drew my attention to a book that he found on Amazon, that purported to contain bilingual crosswords puzzles in English and Wageman.

I was a bit perlexed by this, since, well, Wagiman doesn’t have much in the way of practical applications such as second-language learning, that is, of course, beyond the community of Wagiman people. It should be noted at this point though, that this book is not being marketed towards the small community of non-Wagiman speaking Wagiman people, but to a North American audience.

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More spam, or What I’ve been doing

Jangari — Mon, 26 May 2008 22:50:12 +0000

I received this piece of concise, witty and rather insightful spam in the inbox of my work address this morning, and as it amused me I thought I’d share it.

From: Monte Cunningham
Subject: best

your life is crap

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Marn Grook and the History Wars

Jangari — Fri, 23 May 2008 08:32:28 +0000

Last night’s 7:30 Report featured a report on the origins of AFL footfall, and specifically that it may have been inspired by a game played by the Aborigines of western Victoria called Marn Grook.

The main proponent of this theory is Jim Poulter, a descendant of settlers who saw Marn Grook played at the goldfields near Warendight in the 1850s; several years before AFL was established. However, the historian interviewed for the report, Gillian Hibbins, disagrees on the basis that the celebrated inventor of AFL football, Tom Wills, never mentioned the indigenous sport in any of his writings, either personal or professional.

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Not friendly milk as such

Jangari — Sun, 04 May 2008 04:16:31 +0000

…but here is an equally improbable sentence that my housemate uttered this morning.

Electing Slogans

Jangari — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 10:09:28 +0000

I’ve been at Sydney University now for over six years, including five years as a full-time student, with full voting rights whenever any elections were held. So I’m not exactly new to the phenomenon that is the stupid election slogan, but I can’t help but wince any time I see fresh paint in the graffiti tunnel, advertising the newest slew of pseudo-political hopefuls.

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Health and Houses

Jangari — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 05:45:31 +0000

Over the past 10 months or so, I’ve made it clear that housing, in my opinion, is one of the most important factors of indigenous affairs right now. The state of the vast majority of dwellings in most aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory and probably elsewhere is quite honestly despicable.

Despite this raw fact, and despite all relevant research pointing to poverty and poor housing as key risk factors for the neglect and abuse of children as well as a direct cause of most juvenile medical problems in indigenous children, the Howard/Brough intervention plan failed to address housing, and seemingly didn’t even consider it as an important issue. There was talk during the earlier days of the intervention that the military presence, under the banner of ‘Norforce’, would quickly build 500 or so dwellings in a blitz to address the problem of chronic overcrowding, which, by the way, sees up to 10 people sharing a single room in the worst cases, but this never seemed to eventuate.

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