Mr WOOD - 2003-05-01
Minister, when I last visited Alice Springs I visited the wonderful Alice Springs Desert Park, and one thing I noticed is that plants and animals were given their scientific names, followed by their Aboriginal name and then a pronunciation. For instance, the thorny devil is called the Moloch horridus. The Arrernte name is spelt Unyerre and pronounced oonyirra, and you can get this fact sheet from the park.
The Arrernte name does not look anything like the pronunciation. To bring a Darwin perspective to this, there is a suburb in Darwin that is spelt M-A-L-A-K and it is pronounced by Darwin people as Malak, which …
A member interjecting.
Mr WOOD: That is right! It is meant to be Maluk or Muluk, after the Maluk Maluk people. Minister, as a former teacher and, I believe, a student of Aboriginal language, do you believe that Aboriginal languages, which were not written languages, should be written in plain English instead of phonetic English, so that the vast majority of people, especially our visitors, including me, can read these names without requiring a degree in linguistics?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I will try and give a short and interesting answer. I immediately thought, while you were asking the question, about the Yipirinya Festival in Alice Springs. It was the first time that the town of Alice Springs en masse realised the traditional landscape on which this town is based. Most people who saw that were really inspired by this new dimension in where you lived and where you travelled around each day.
All over the world, you can see examples of bilingual or multilingual systems, allowing people to find their way around or get information about the country or the city they are in. There is nothing wrong with that at all.
On the topic of linguists, though, I must confess I share the member for Nelson’s bemusement about the way linguists do spell words. I always thought ‘a’ was an a and ‘e’ was an e and ‘double r’s’ had a rrrr to them, but somehow the linguists take that basic information and re-code it into whatever they write. They assure me that it is all about where your tongue travels round your mouth and what your teeth are doing and all sorts of things.
Honestly, it would be to everyone’s advantage if we kept it within the scope of what average people can cope with. I would not mind seeing it simplified but, look, I will make you an offer, though: I will give you two days free linguistic time with one of my friends there and you will come out even more confused.
The Arrernte name does not look anything like the pronunciation. To bring a Darwin perspective to this, there is a suburb in Darwin that is spelt M-A-L-A-K and it is pronounced by Darwin people as Malak, which …
A member interjecting.
Mr WOOD: That is right! It is meant to be Maluk or Muluk, after the Maluk Maluk people. Minister, as a former teacher and, I believe, a student of Aboriginal language, do you believe that Aboriginal languages, which were not written languages, should be written in plain English instead of phonetic English, so that the vast majority of people, especially our visitors, including me, can read these names without requiring a degree in linguistics?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I will try and give a short and interesting answer. I immediately thought, while you were asking the question, about the Yipirinya Festival in Alice Springs. It was the first time that the town of Alice Springs en masse realised the traditional landscape on which this town is based. Most people who saw that were really inspired by this new dimension in where you lived and where you travelled around each day.
All over the world, you can see examples of bilingual or multilingual systems, allowing people to find their way around or get information about the country or the city they are in. There is nothing wrong with that at all.
On the topic of linguists, though, I must confess I share the member for Nelson’s bemusement about the way linguists do spell words. I always thought ‘a’ was an a and ‘e’ was an e and ‘double r’s’ had a rrrr to them, but somehow the linguists take that basic information and re-code it into whatever they write. They assure me that it is all about where your tongue travels round your mouth and what your teeth are doing and all sorts of things.
Honestly, it would be to everyone’s advantage if we kept it within the scope of what average people can cope with. I would not mind seeing it simplified but, look, I will make you an offer, though: I will give you two days free linguistic time with one of my friends there and you will come out even more confused.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016