The Age: New chapter for ancient songbook

In New chapter for ancient songbook, Andrew Bock writes about The Song Peoples Sessions, a project to produce both archival material, and commercial releases of traditional and contemporary indigenous Australian musicians.

The article claims that "This is the first project to help contemporary indigenous musicians learn traditional language and record music with song people from their own families", and relates the stories of some of the musicians involved.

Languages mentioned: Yanyuwa, Warumungu

ABC Reports on Indigenous translation of National Anthem

In Kutju Australia, our land is girt by red dust
, ABC reports on a new translation of the Australian National Anthem into Loritja Pintupi.

The translation was undertaken by "politician Alison Anderson and musician Ted Egan", "to increase awareness about the language of Australia's first people."

The article claims that it is the first translation in to an indigenous Australian language.

Don't listen to us, go and do chores

A dance for the winds


Australian Geographic reports on a new work by dancer/choreographer Elma Kris.

What is interesting for this blog is that she mentions the nature of language use in her childhood home life:

When she was growing up her mother didn't speak much "language" as she calls Kalaw Lagaw Ya, the language of the western and central Torres Strait Islands, but would converse in Creole, a form of English. "The only time you got to see them talk language was when there was an event on the island or people coming to a celebration. My mother would always say to me, 'don't listen to us - go and do chores'."

This highlights one of the causes of language death. The reluctance to use a language around one's children, favouring a different language perceived to be more "useful" in some way. Whether it be more widely spoken or prestigious.

"Last Silent Movie" at Tate Britain

As part of the Susan Hiller retrospective at Tate Britain, her work "The Last Silent Movie" is on display.

The work consists of recordings of various endangered and extinct languages. Visually, an otherwise blank screen, displays subtitles translating the speech into English. Notably, the speaker of Khulkassi is not subtitled because no one can translate the lullaby she sings.

The Telegraph says that the piece

Takes the theme of extinction and memory and what remains of us when we die to its logical conclusion. For what we are listening to are the last speakers of extinct or endangered languages.

and the Independent states that

Hiller's film is like the voice of a ghost, speaking a dialect of the dead

and declares that one speaker's assertion that "We will speak Comanche forever." isn't true, because "only a handful of people now use the language, all of them old."

In their reviews of the retrospective, The Guardian, and the London Evening Standard do not mention this piece at all.

The languages used in the piece are:

• K'ora,
• Cajun French, 
• Xokleng, 
• Ngansan, 
• Manx, 
• Waima'a, 
• Klallam, 
• Lower Sorbian, 
• Silbo Gomero (Listed on Ethnologue as a dialect of Spanish),
• Jerrais (Listed on Ethnologue as a dialect of French)
• Livonian, 
• Lenape, 
• Southern Sami, 
• Ngarrindjeri, 
• Potowatomi, 
• Border Cuna,
• Wampanoag, 
• Kulkhassi, (Extinct since before Ethnologue/ISO 639)
• Yao Kimmien, 
• Welsh Romany, 
• Ubykh, 
• Kolyma Yukaghir, 
• Jiwarli,
• Comanche.
• Blackfoot

The full credits are listed in the article: Translating Death.