External links
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Academics | |
| Other | |
Peter Austin | |
|---|---|
| Nationality | Australian |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | Australian National University (BA, PhD) |
| Thesis | A grammar of the Diyari language of north-east South Australia (1978) |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Linguist |
| Sub-discipline | |
| Institutions | SOAS University of London |
Peter Kenneth Austin, often cited as Peter K. Austin, is an Australian linguist, widely published in the fields of language documentation, syntax, linguistic typology and in particular, endangered languages and language revitalisation. After a long academic career in Australia, Hong Kong, the US, Japan, Germany and the UK, Austin is emeritus professor at SOAS University of London since retiring in December 2018.
After completing a BA degree with first class Honours in Asian Studies (Japanese and Linguistics) in 1974, [1] Austin earned his PhD with his thesis entitled A grammar of the Diyari language of north-east South Australia at the Australian National University (ANU) in 1978. [2]
He then taught at the University of Western Australia, held a Harkness Fellowship at UCLA and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1979–80, and in 1981 headed the Division (later Department) of Linguistics at La Trobe University in Melbourne. He held visiting appointments at Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics at Nijmegen, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, University of Hong Kong, and Stanford University, and was Foundation Professor of Linguistics at the University of Melbourne from 1996 to 2002. [1]
He became the Märit Rausing Chair in Field Linguistics [3] in January 2003 [1] and then Emeritus Professor in Field Linguistics at SOAS on his retirement in December 2018. [4] Throughout his career, Austin has been deeply involved in work to document and describe languages that are otherwise on the verge of extinction. [5]
He worked with Eli Timan on documenting Judeo-Iraqi Arabic, and with Sabah Aldihisi on Neo-Mandaic ritual language used by the Mandean communities of Syria, Iraq and Iran. [1]
During his retirement, he worked with colleagues at University of Warsaw and Leiden University on an EU Horizon2020 Twinning collaboration called the Engaged Humanities project. [6] He also worked with Stefanie Pillai of the University of Malaya, on a research project funded by the British Academy in Malaysia. In 2020 he was awarded a Leverhulme Emeritus Fellowship (2021-2023) to work on a dictionary of Diyari (South Australia) and a biography of his Diyari teacher Ben Murray. [4] [ failed verification ]
He has done fieldwork on twelve Australian Aboriginal languages, particularly those from northern New South Wales ( such as Gamilaraay/Kamilaroi), northern South Australia, and north-west Western Australia, publishing several bilingual dictionaries. These included, in collaboration with David Nathan, the first fully page-formatted hypertext dictionary of an Australian language, with the creation of the 1994 Gamilaraay online dictionary. [7] [4]
He has worked extensively and intensively on the Dieri (Diyari) language of northern SA. He first learned Diyari in 1974, from several fluent native-speakers, including Leslie Russell, Frieda Merrick, Rosa Warren, and Ben Murray, who he encountered in Marree, South Australia. Along with Luise Hercus and David Trefry, he did much research on the language in the 1970s. Austin published a grammar of Diyari in 1981. [8]
From 2011 he has been working with the Dieri Aboriginal Corporation on revitalisation of the language. [4] In 2013 he published a draft Diyari dictionary, writing in the preface that a companion grammar was also available, and that a text collection was in preparation. [9] In 2014 he published an article "And still they speak Diyari", in which he wrote of the unique place of the language, as the subject of intensive interest by outsiders as well as native speakers for nearly 140 years, and that not only is it not extinct, but it is living and being maintained for the future. [10] [11]
Since 2013 Austin has maintained a blog on Diyari. [8] The blog is one of a number of language revitalisation and reclamation activities held in conjunction with the Dieri community.
Since 1995, Austin has also worked on the Austronesian languages Sasak and Samawa, which are spoken on the islands of Lombok and Sumbawa in the Indonesian archipelago. [4]
He has also published works on historical and comparative linguistics, typology, and Aboriginal history and biography. [4]
Austin has won the following awards and prizes:
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Academics | |
| Other | |
The Diyari, alternatively transcribed as Dieri, is an Indigenous Australian group of the South Australian desert originating in and around the delta of Cooper Creek to the east of Lake Eyre.
Kenneth Locke Hale, also known as Ken Hale, was an American linguist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who studied a huge variety of previously unstudied and often endangered languages—especially indigenous languages of North America and Australia. Languages investigated by Hale include Navajo, O'odham, Warlpiri, and Ulwa.
The Gamilaroi, also known as Gomeroi, Kamilaroi, Kamillaroi and other variations, are an Aboriginal Australian people whose lands extend from New South Wales to southern Queensland. They form one of the four largest Indigenous nations in Australia.
The Wiradhuric languages or Central (Inland) New South Wales, are a family of Pama–Nyungan languages of Australia. There are three languages:
The Gamilaraay or Kamilaroi language is a Pama–Nyungan language of the Wiradhuric subgroup found mostly in south-eastern Australia. It is the traditional language of the Gamilaraay (Kamilaroi), an Aboriginal Australian people. It has been noted as endangered, but the number of speakers grew from 87 in the 2011 Australian Census to 105 in the 2016 Australian Census. Thousands of Australians identify as Gamilaraay, and the language is taught in some schools.
Stephen Adolphe Wurm was a Hungarian-born Australian linguist.
The Wirangu language, also written Wirrongu, Wirrung, Wirrunga, and Wirangga, and also known by other exonyms, is a moribund Australian Aboriginal language traditionally spoken by the Wirangu people, living on the west coast of South Australia across a region encompassing modern Ceduna and Streaky Bay, stretching west approximately to the head of the Great Australian Bight and east to Lake Gairdner. It is a language of the Thura-Yura group, and some older sources placed it in a subgroup called Nangga.
Darkinjung is an Australian Aboriginal language, the traditional language of the Darkinjung people. While no audio recordings of the language survive, several researchers have compiled wordlists and grammatical descriptions. It has been classified as a language no longer fully spoken and it can be classified as needing a language renewal program. It was spoken adjacent to Dharuk, Wiradhuri, Guringai, Gamilaraay, and Awabakal. The Darkinjung tribe occupied a small part of southeastern Australia inside what is now the New South Wales area. They likely inhabited a considerable tract of land within Hunter, Northumberland, and Cook counties.
David George Nash is a prominent Australian field linguist, specialising in the Aboriginal languages of Australia. Brought up in Parkes, New South Wales, he received a BA in pure mathematics from the Australian National University followed by an M.A. in Linguistics. He then went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he studied with Ken Hale and received his PhD in linguistics in 1980. Before returning to Australia, he worked on the Lexicon Project at MIT. In 2005 he was Ken Hale Professor at the Linguistic Society of America Summer Institute. He works as a consultant for various Aboriginal organisations. He is also a Visiting Fellow of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies.
Prior to the arrival of Europeans, Australian Aboriginal languages had been purely spoken languages, and had no writing system. On their arrival, Latin script became a standard for transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages, but the details of how the sounds were represented has varied over time and from writer to writer, sometimes resulting in a great many variant spellings of the same word or name.
Diyari or Dieri is an Australian Aboriginal language spoken by the Diyari people in the far north of South Australia, to the east of Lake Eyre. It was studied by German Lutheran missionaries who translated Christian works into the language in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, so that it developed an extensive written form. Only a few fluent speakers of Diyari remained by the early 21st century, but a dictionary and grammar of the language was produced by linguist Peter K. Austin, and there is a project under way to teach it in schools.
Michael George Clyne, AM, FAHA, FASSA was an Australian linguist, academic and intellectual. He was a scholar in various fields of linguistics, including sociolinguistics, pragmatics, bilingualism and multilingualism, second language learning, contact linguistics and intercultural communication.
Nicholas "Nick" Evans is an Australian linguist and a leading expert on endangered languages. He was born in Los Angeles, USA.
Victor Golla (1939–2021) was a linguist and a leading expert on the indigenous languages of California and Oregon, especially the Pacific Coast Athabaskan subgroup of the Athabaskan language family and the languages of the region that belong to the Penutian phylum. He was emeritus professor of anthropology at Humboldt State University and lived in Trinidad, California.
Margaret Florey is an Australian linguist whose work focuses on the revitalization and maintenance of Indigenous Australian languages. She has documented changes in contemporary speech, such as the expression Yeah, no which is becoming more prevalent in Australia.
Luise Anna Hercus, née Schwarzschild, was a German-born linguist who lived in Australia from 1954. After significant early work on Middle Indo-Aryan dialects (Prakrits) she had specialised in Australian Aboriginal languages since 1963, when she took it up as a hobby. Works authored or co-authored by her are influential, and often among the primary resource materials on many languages of Australia.
Bruce Rigsby was an American-Australian anthropologist specializing in the languages and ethnography of native peoples on both continents. He was professor emeritus at Queensland University, and a member of both the Australian Anthropological Society and the American Anthropological Association.
Felicity Meakins is a linguist specialising in Australian Indigenous languages, morphology and language contact, who was one of the first academics to describe Gurindji Kriol. As of 2022, she is a professor at the University of Queensland and Deputy Director of the University of Queensland node of the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language. She holds an ARC Future Fellowship focusing on language evolution and contact processes across northern Australia.
A cleverman is a traditional healer and keeper of culture in many Aboriginal cultures of Australia. The roles, terms for, and abilities of a cleverman vary between different Aboriginal nations. Some clevermen heal bodily injuries and illnesses, while others heal spiritual ailments. They heal using plants, songs, and spiritual knowledge. Exceptionally powerful clevermen are believed to have magical powers and may heal both physical and spiritual ailments. Some sources also refer to clevermen having the ability to kill using magic, although this may be illegal within the culture or a separate form of harmful 'sorcery' from that used by cleverman healers. Clevermen also serve as cultural keepers and are experts in stories and spiritual beliefs. They have a strong understanding of sacred places and lore and a deep connection to the Dreaming. Clevermen may be men or women, depending on the culture.
