OLAC Record oai:www.mpi.nl:1839_00-0000-0000-0008-C475-4

Metadata
Title:		Mick Yarmirr - this is my country
		MAR_w_951004
		Yiwarrunj, yinyman, radbiyi lda mali: Iwaidja and Other Endangered Languages of the Cobourg Peninsula (Australia) in their Cultural Context
Contributor (consultant):		Mick Yarmirr (Barrijbugulyu)
Coverage:		Australia
Date:		1995-10-04
Description:		This text is a speech given by Mick Yarmirr to a mediation gathering that preceded the full launching of the Croker Island Sea Claim, on 4/10/1995, presided over by Senator Fred Cheney. It was recorded by Ben Scambary on behalf of the NLC (Northern Land Council). This speech is a good example of the way knowledge of the local language is a symbolic title deed to ownership of country, so that its public use validates the rights of the speaker over the country that the language belongs to. The speaker here is using it in this symbolic way, in the full knowledge that few if any of his audience, which included Aboriginal people from a range of places, but also a number of European Australians representing various interests, could understand the words he was saying. His speech begins in English, addressed to these people, but quickly switches into Marrku. A published version of this text, with English and Iwaidja translations, is on pp. 43-5 of Majila Inkawart.
		This project documents, in as full a cultural context as is possible, the Iwaidja language of the Cobourg Peninsula, Northern Territory, Australia (Iwaidjan language family, non-Pama-Nyungan), still spoken by around 200 people but under increasing threat from English, as well as recording material from other languages of the region (Marrgu, Ilgar/ Garig, Amurdak and Manangkari) which are all reduced to one or two speakers each. In addition to linguists, the research team will include specialists in ethnomusicology, material culture / archaeology, and social anthropology, and will result in a comprehensive, searchable and browsable sound and video documentation, with Iwaidja transcriptions and subtitles alongside English translations, an Iwaidja dictionary of around 5,000 words, detailed phonetic analysis, and briefer materials on other languages of the area.
		Mick Yarmirr, also known as Barrijbugulyu, was an Ildukij-Marndilarri man. His skin was Nawamud and he belonged to the Yarriyarniny (muwarn ‘sun’) phratry. At the age of seven, Mick Yarmirr was taken away from his own country on Croker Island to the mission on Goulburn Island. On Goulburn he learned to speak the local language, Mawng, and largely forgot his mother tongue Marrku. When he finally returned to Croker Island as a young man, the old people scraped his tongue with a cockle shell to clean away his adopted language and restore the knowledge of his real language, Marrku, but he never learned the language back fully, although in the mid 1990s he was seen as the most knowledgeable speaker of the language. In the days when the Croker Island Mission only admitted people of mixed descent, Mick Yarmirr was unusual in gaining the friendship and respect of the missionaries and being allowed to reside on his own lands with his family. With his wife Medek he had many children who have gone on to play prominent roles in the Minjilang Community and the Top End more generally: Daisy, Mary, Christine, Jessie, Henry, Ian, Andrew and Tony Yarmirr. Mick was a forceful man and an outspoken advocate of the rights of his people. He was closely involved in bringing forward the Croker Island Sea Claim but passed away before the case properly commenced in 1996.
Format:		audio/x-wav
		text/x-trs
		text/x-eaf+xml
Identifier:		oai:www.mpi.nl:1839_00-0000-0000-0008-C475-4
		IW
Publisher:		Nicholas Evans
		University of Melbourne
Subject:		Unspecified
		Margu language
		Marrku
Subject (ISO639):		mhg
Type:		audio
OLAC Info
Archive:		The Language Archive at the MPI for Psycholinguistics
Description:		http://www.language-archives.org/archive/www.mpi.nl
GetRecord:		OAI-PMH request for OLAC format
GetRecord:		Pre-generated XML file
OAI Info
OaiIdentifier:		oai:www.mpi.nl:1839_00-0000-0000-0008-C475-4
DateStamp:		2017-02-14
GetRecord:		OAI-PMH request for simple DC format
Search Info
Citation:		Mick Yarmirr (Barrijbugulyu) (consultant). 1995-10-04. Nicholas Evans.
Terms:		area_Pacific country_AU iso639_mhg
Inferred Metadata
Country:		Australia
Area:		Pacific