Language and Australian Aboriginal history: Anindilyakwa and English on Groote Eylandt

Journal article


Rademaker, Laura. (2014). Language and Australian Aboriginal history: Anindilyakwa and English on Groote Eylandt. History Australia. 11(2), pp. 222 - 239. https://doi.org/10.1080/14490854.2014.11668523
AuthorsRademaker, Laura
Abstract

The survival of the Anindilyakwa language of Groote Eylandt on its encounter with English is a story of Aboriginal people’s adaptability and perseverance in the face of alternate visions for their island. When the Church Missionary Society arrived and, with Anindilyakwa people, established the Angurugu mission, an ongoing tension began over which language would be the language of the land: English or Anindilyakwa? This article argues that, since that time, Anindilyakwa people have used strategies of both accommodation and strategic resistance to maintain the strength of their language, compelling even missionaries and government to adapt to Anindilyakwa interests. Australia’s language histories such as this have implications for historians as they consider whose languages they listen to and remember. For historians, part of the ongoing process of reconciliation will be using Aboriginal languages as well as acknowledging and incorporating the stories of Australia’s languages in their work.

Year2014
JournalHistory Australia
Journal citation11 (2), pp. 222 - 239
ISSN1833-4881
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.1080/14490854.2014.11668523
Page range222 - 239
Research GroupInstitute for Religion and Critical Inquiry
Publisher's version
File Access Level
Controlled
Permalink -

https://acuresearchbank.acu.edu.au/item/8912x/language-and-australian-aboriginal-history-anindilyakwa-and-english-on-groote-eylandt

Restricted files

Publisher's version

  • 99
    total views
  • 0
    total downloads
  • 4
    views this month
  • 0
    downloads this month
These values are for the period from 19th October 2020, when this repository was created.

Export as

Related outputs

A miserable sectarian spirit: Sectarianism and the women's movement in early twentieth-century New South Wales
Rademaker, Laura. (2017). A miserable sectarian spirit: Sectarianism and the women's movement in early twentieth-century New South Wales. Labour History: A Journal of Labour and Social history. 2017(112), pp. 175 - 190. https://doi.org/10.5263/labourhistory.112.0175
'We want a good mission not rubish please': Aboriginal petitions and mission nostalgia
Rademaker, Laura. (2016). 'We want a good mission not rubish please': Aboriginal petitions and mission nostalgia. Aboriginal History. 40, pp. 119 - 143. https://doi.org/10.22459/AH.40.2016
'Only cuppa tea Christians': Colonisation, authentic indigeneity and the missionary linguist
Rademaker, Laura. (2016). 'Only cuppa tea Christians': Colonisation, authentic indigeneity and the missionary linguist. History Australia. 13(2), pp. 228 - 242. https://doi.org/10.1080/14490854.2016.1185999
Religion for the modern girl: Maude Royden in Australia, 1928
Rademaker, Laura. (2016). Religion for the modern girl: Maude Royden in Australia, 1928. Australian Feminist Studies. 31(89), pp. 336 - 354. https://doi.org/10.1080/08164649.2016.1254024
Why historians need linguists (and linguists need historians)
Rademaker, Laura. (2016). Why historians need linguists (and linguists need historians). In In P. K. Austin, H. Koch and J. Simpson (Ed.). Language land & song: Studies in honour of Luise Hercus pp. 480 - 491 EL Publishing.
Missions, politics and linguistic research: The case of the Anindilyakwa language
Rademaker, Laura. (2015). Missions, politics and linguistic research: The case of the Anindilyakwa language. Historiographia Linguistica. 42(2), pp. 379 - 400.
Missions and Aboriginal difference: Judith Stokes and Australian missionary linguistics
Rademaker, Laura. (2015). Missions and Aboriginal difference: Judith Stokes and Australian missionary linguistics. Journal of Australian Studies. 39(1), pp. 66 - 78. https://doi.org/10.1080/14443058.2014.987679
'I had more children than most people': Single women's missionary maternalism in Arnhem Land, 1908-1945
Rademaker, Laura. (2014). 'I had more children than most people': Single women's missionary maternalism in Arnhem Land, 1908-1945. Lilith: A Feminist History Journal. 17-18, pp. 7 - 21.