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calandrinon · 1 month

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ok there was a poll about national anthems and I have what I think is one of my best ideas yet, thanks to Aotearoa for the inspiration.

For those who don't know, the national anthem of Aotearoa has a verse in te reo Māori and a verse in English, which is an excellent idea for a titchy little country with one unified indigenous language but is not so easy in a vast expanse where there are thousands.

So do we all know I Am Australian by the Seekers?

It's been proposed with varying degrees of seriousness as an alternative national anthem, but my proposal goes one step further (ok, many steps):

I suggest that the Australian national anthem should be the chorus to I Am Australian, in English and in every available indigenous Australian language.

"but cal that would make the anthem 1000 minutes long" yes but obviously we wouldn't sing every verse every time! In practice the version of the anthem sung would include those languages that are appropriate. So everyone would get to learn the anthem in the language of the Aboriginal nation where they live, and at events in that nation you might sing the anthem in English (usually) and in that language. If you move to a different area you learn the anthem in the language of that area. If you are not great with languages that's fine, as long as you have a go, and if all you can do is belt out "I am you are we are Australian" at the right time and on roughly the right notes then at least you have the right spirit.

Here's how it might work:

If you're at a sporting event where the anthem is sung, like the Anzac Day match at the MCG, they'd sing the anthem in English and the Woiwurrung language (covers both teams and the ground itself).

If the world turned even more upside down and Freo played GWS in the grand final, you might hear English (native language of most players and the competition), Woiwurrung (the holy MCG), Nyoongar (Fremantle) and Dharug (GWS).

In practice there should be a cap on the number of verses because otherwise someone would definitely take the piss, but this should not be legislated because sometimes you need someone to take the piss.

If the anthem is sung to highlight the achievements of one person, it might include the verse(s) most appropriate to that person - where they were born or grew up, where they live and work, where their ancestors are from. This is an occasion where I can imagine the English verse could legitimately be omitted.

A sporting team or other group representing many languages could choose to nominate one or more verses to be played. Maybe if it's Alex's 50th match then they sing Alex's verse that game, then at the next game they sing Pat's verse because Pat had to leave the tour for the birth of their child, and of course opinion will be split between "aww that's really sweet" and "stop messing with it".

Most importantly, there should be no single official version. Any definition should not specifically include or exclude any single verse, not even the original English verse. Preferably the definition should be broad enough that we could all sing a verse in te reo Māori for Barnaby Joyce and it would be legit.

Anyway please feel free to expand on this and/or tell me I'm an idiot genius, I have a dog who requires attention

#hand crafted artisanal shitposting #straya!#the anthem #this proposal includes waltzing matilda as the national song #apparently they are different things #malcolm fraser is turning in his grave

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fatehbaz · 4 years

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A close encounter with a flying fox induces the strong awareness of being in the company of an odd little kinsman. With their small furry bodies and dog/human-like faces; with their chattery camps full of individuals who are grooming each other and carrying on their daily life -- [...] raising babies, guarding teenagers, remaining attentive to sources of food in the region; with their fantastic wing-spread and their spectacular nightly flyouts, I find it difficult to understand how anyone could fail to be completely entranced. [...]

[I]n the northwest corner of the Northern Territory [...] in the communities of Yarralin and Lingar [...] [p]rior to the wet season (in December or so), the black flying foxes, warrpa in local languages, congregated along the riverbanks, hanging from the riverside trees. Occasionally one might lose its grip and become a tasty treat for crocodiles. [...] One of my teachers was Daly Pulkara, a man with a good fund of flying fox stories. [...]

Flying fox persons (animal/human) are also part of the story of seasons. [...] The story of rain starts in the dry season, during the cold time of year when the flying foxes are in the higher country away from the rivers. As the sun dries the country, they move toward the river, and when they get there they hang in the trees over the river [...]. Flying foxes feed by preference on the flowers of trees and shrubs of the Myrtaceae family. Yarralin people point especially to the inland bloodwood (Eucalyptus terminalis, jartpuru in local languages) and the magnificent tree known in vernacular English as the half bark (E. Confertiflora, ngurlgugu). Both of these species produce large, showy clusters of cream-coloured, heavily scented flowers, so they are obvious candidates for both flying fox and human attention. In the Victoria River region eucalypts and melaleucas flower in succession from higher ground to lower ground, which is also to say from the drier country on the hillsides down to the river banks and channels. River red gum (E. Camaldulensis), known as timalan in local Indigenous languages, and paperbarks (pakali, Melaleuca argenta and M. leucadendra) are the two big riverside Myrtaceous trees. The banks of the rivers of this region are lined with paperbarks and river red gums. They are the last in the succession to burst into flower. The flying foxes follow their preferred food, and it brings them to the riverside at the end of the driest time of year; they forage there in the thousands.

Flying foxes have been relating to native trees for much longer than they have been relating to humans. [...] [T]here is good evidence to support a hypothesis of co-evolution and co-dependence between megachiropterans and flowing [sic] plants. In fact, flying foxes and the smaller tube-nosed fruit bats may be the only seed dispersal agents for many rainforest trees [...]. Flying foxes have a keen sense of smell and their eyes are adjusted to night vision and to recognising light colours. Myrtaceous trees and shrubs produce clumps of flowers that are strongly scented and usually light in colour. They produce their pollen in the night, when the flying foxes are foraging; flying foxes are able to carry large loads of pollen because of their (relatively) large size; and because the plants flower sequentially, ‘myrtaceous forests and woodlands provide a constant food supply throughout the year for these animals’ (Hall and Richards 82). [...]

Understandably, perhaps, when they decide to camp in suburban back yards, coming in by the thousands and showing no inclination to move on as long as there is food in the region, humans do lose patience. I can’t help but think that something about them reminds us of us -- of how we are when we are at our most crowded, noisy and irritating. [...]

In addition to the distaste some people experience toward the bat shape and the bat reputation, and to the smell and the noise, orchardists have a grievance against flying foxes who eat the fruit. Although the evidence is clear that flying foxes prefer the myrtaceae flowers and forest fruits with which they are co-evolved, the clearing of native vegetation and its replacement with commercial fruit crops has left them little choice. Biologist Francis Ratcliffe came out to Australia in 1929 sponsored by the state governments of New South Wales and Queensland to investigate the orchardists’ problem. [...] Orchardists, along with many other people, held what we might call a zero-tolerance vision. Basically, they wanted flying foxes gone forever. This is an ‘us’ and ‘them’ boundary organised along an either-or axis: it offers no place for co-existence or mutuality. [...]

Direct killing has been a major factor in the loss of flying fox lives. Ratcliffe reported that in the 1920s the ‘Brisbane and East Moreton Pests Destruction board’ counted 300,000 flying fox deaths achieved under a bounty system (Martin and McIlwee 104). More recently, there were estimates of 100,000 or more grey-headed flying foxes being shot annually in the 1990s (Tidemann et al.). [...] In 2008 the state of Queensland stopped issuing permits to kill flying foxes on the grounds that it was inhumane. At the time of writing, the state of New South Wales still issues permits to kill (Booth et al. 6). Shooting was and remains one of the primary technologies in the battle against flying foxes. [...] Ratcliffe used the language of warfare to express his mission. [...] [T]he modern world did not do away with concepts of useless and useful, but rather set out to eliminate the ‘useless’. Mass murder was imagined as ‘creative destruction, conceived as a healing surgical operation’. [...]

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Photo, caption, and text published by: Deborah Bird Rose. “Flying Fox: Kin, Keystone, Kontaminant.” Australian Humanities Review. May 2011.

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superlinguo · 4 years

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Superlinguo 2020: Back to work!

I am very excited about going back to work after a year off. I have had a great time watching an adorable tiny bub become an adorable toddler hurricane, but after a year of pondering and not much time for typing, I am looking forward to returning to existing projects and starting new ones.

Thankfully I still had Superlinguo and Lingthusiasm to keep my linguistics brain occupied in 2019. Here are some highlights from last year.