Cirrus@Austlit

'This collection honours the work of Luise Hercus. Luise Hercus has been a leading figure in the documentation of Australian Indigenous languages for more than 50 years. Her work ranges from salvage studies to detailed descriptions, all richly contextualised by documentation of songs, stories, land and biographies.' (Introduction)

'The contributors to this book highlight current practice in language documentation, drawing on insights from anthropology, digital humanities, education, ethnography, history, linguistics and musicology. The book shows how the value of this multi-faceted documentation has become clear over the last 50 years.' (Publication summary)

'William ('Bill') Reid was born on 23 January 1917 in a calico tent on the Cuttabri Aboriginal reserve near Wee Waa, New South Wales, of Gamilaraay (Kamilaroi) descent. His parents worked on nearby Sunnyside station, supplementing their wages with bush tucker. At an early age, Bill took a great interest in the language and culture of the Murrie people and developed a store of knowledge about traditional plants, animals, foods and medicines. At the age of six, he went to Wee Waa where he attended school for two years (his only formal schooling), and then at 13 was sent off to work ringbarking and cutting burrs for 1s 6d per week. His mother moved the family to Brewarrina in 1922 to escape the reserve authorities.' (Introduction)

'For the past thirty years, RMW Dixon has been researching the languages of the Cairns rainforest region, producing a steady stream of linguistic publications. A s a result, the languages of the area are among the most technically well described in Australia. The book under review is the completion of Dixon's work on Yidiny, the language originally spoken in Cairns and areas to the south, begun with the grammatical description of Dixon 1977.'  (Introduction)

In May 1985 Peter Austin recorded two oral histories of Jack Butler in the Jiwarli language. The transcription and translation of these Jiwarli texts are Butler's eyewitness accounts of two natural occurrence events that took place when he was a child. The first event he described was an earthquake that occurred in 1906, the other event he eyewitnessed was the appearance of Halley's comet in 1910.