Gaman dictionary editor

A WYSIWYG editor for the relational database that serves the Gaman guladha Gamilaraay, Yuwaalaraay, Yuwaalayaay: Gamilaraay, Yuwaalaraay and Yuwaalayaay Dictionary. Uniquely designed to enable inclusive, community-based roles in maintaining the Gaman dictionary for languages that are undergoing revitalisation. See also the Gaman guladha Gamilaraay, Yuwaalaraay, Yuwaalayaay: Gamilaraay, Yuwaalaraay and Yuwaalayaay Dictionary project on this page, or view the online dictionary here.

Yolŋu (Yolngu) Languages Web App

An updated, extended and re-engineered version of the original Gupapuyŋu app/CD-ROM, re-implemented in modern open-source web technologies. Developed for Charles Darwin University’s long-running Yolŋu Studies Program.

This new web app presents language learning resources and self-testing for four east Arnhemland Yolŋu languages - Gupapuyŋu, Djambarrpuyŋu, Ganalbiŋu, and Marraŋu. It also contains a unique interactive kinship system chart.

URL: matha.cdu.edu.au/

Yolŋu (Yolngu) Kinship interactive

An interactive chart showing kinship generations, moieties, clans, and kinship terminology, with notes and explanations. This is an extended and re-engineered version of the kinship section of the original Gupapuyŋu app/CD-ROM, re-implemented in modern open-source web technologies. Developed for Charles Darwin University’s long-running Yolŋu Studies Program.

The kinship page is here: interactive kinship system chart. You need to select a moiety and a gender to activate the chart.

URL: matha.cdu.edu.au/

Gupapuyngu

A language teaching, learning and self-assessment application, developed in the early 2000’s in collaboration with linguists and language speakers at Charles Darwin University, for the University’s long-running Yolŋu Studies Program. It was a component of the first distance learning package for an Aboriginal language, which in 2005 won annual Prime Minister’s Prize for Australian University Teachers.

Gaman guladha Gamilaraay, Yuwaalaraay, Yuwaalayaay: Gamilaraay, Yuwaalaraay and Yuwaalayaay Dictionary

A multimedia dictionary of three related languages of north-central NSW. It has a number of innovative features, including user selection of language(s), view types, and entries linked to further information and example sentences. Each word and sentence is accompanied by audio. There is an embedded concordance of 1000 sentences, each linked back to the dictionary word-by-word. It is searchable by word, meaning, and via an English finderlist and a semantic topic list.

https://dnathan.com/gaman/

As linguist at the Groote Eylandt Language Centre my projects were in language resource development; digital access, curation, publishing, and archiving; training; and language policy. I promoted a ‘language-first’ and ‘audio priority’ approach to producing and sharing language materials, using the community’s language (Amamalya Ayakwa / Anindilyakwa) and audio where possible. See the Language Centre website, which includes Milyakburra Stories featuring Judy Lalara and Emily Wurramara ...

AnindilyakwaSafe and the COVID safety campaign

At the onset of COVID there was concern about the potential impact on remote Aboriginal communities. On Groote Eylandt a vigorous, sustained, and multi-strategy information campaign worked to successfully limit COVID cases and to achieve one of the NT's highest vaccination turnouts. The information campaign centred on Groote Broadcasting’s Buddha and the Beard (Lionel Jaragba and Hugh Bland respectively) regular local radio shows, the Angurugu Health Clinic, and the AnindilyakwaSafe website, which collaborated to research, report, collect and share health advice and news about COVID and vaccination. Special emphasis was on locally-relevant information and provision of information in the local language Amamalya Ayakwa /Anindilyakwa.

Dieri Dictionary Data: Managing and converting digital manuscripts

For the Dieri Aboriginal Corporation, I re-worked a 1000 page dictionary manuscript originating from the colonial missionary Rev Reuther. The manuscript had earlier been digitised (with many character recognition errors), and subsequently linguists Peter Scherer, Bernard Schebeck, and Peter K. Austin applied limited nonstandard markup. I used a variety of methods to interpret and process the document to create an XML-marked-up lexicographic resource, which serves a variety of purposes as archival data, language documentation, and language learning materials.

WANALA: Western & Northern Aboriginal Languages Alliance

As the Co-ordinator of the Centre for Australian Languages and Linguistics at Batchelor Institute, I developed resources, ran workshops, and supported professionalisation, networking, training and advocacy for Aboriginal Language Centres in northern and western Australia.

My roles: project officer, web developer, trainer

The Notebooks of William Dawes on the Aboriginal Language of Sydney

I initiated and co-ordinated this major project, bringing together the Endangered Languages Archive, SOAS Library Special Collections, the NSW Department of Aboriginal Affairs, and the (then-) Darug Tribal Aboriginal Council. The William Dawes notebooks (1791) were the first significant documentation of any Australian language. The project created archive-quality digitisations of the notebooks and a new authoritative transcription, extensively marked up using XML/Topic Maps (similar to semantic web). We also undertook research and consultation with government and members of the Sydney Aboriginal community.

URL: http://www.williamdawes.org

Gayarragi, Winangali

A richly interactive multimedia language teaching and learning application built around a full lexicon of two NSW languages, produced in cooperation with Dr John Giacon. The lexicon is fully and flexibly searchable. The app interconnects the lexicon with 1000 spoken and written sentences, 44 stories and 30 songs. There are interactive language games. The application’s graphic design was by prominent designer Christine Bruderlin.

Downloadable from: www.dnathan.com/projects/gw

Paakantyi

Originally produced as a CD-ROM titled Paakantyi, this is an interactive multimedia language teaching/learning resource for school teaching programmes based around a dictionary that existed but was thoroughly supplemented and revised as a result of the project’s fieldwork to elicit additional words and usage examples. Involved intense collaboration between the linguist, graphic designer, Aboriginal community members, and the multimedia producer.

My roles: co-author, co-researcher, multimedia producer

May be available with permission from AIATSIS (http://www.aiatsis.gov.au).

Aboriginal Languages of Australia (WWW Virtual Library)

I initiated and maintained for 20 years Aboriginal Languages of Australia (ALoA), the main web portal for Aboriginal languages, and part of Tim Berners-Lee’s official W3C Virtual Library (now defunct at https://www.vlib.org/ - see its history). ALoA provided summaries, guidance and links to quality resources on Aboriginal languages, especially those produced from communities and by community members. It was listed in most of the major international libraries and other institutions as a key site for Australian languages, and attracted over 500,000 hits a year.

http://www.dnathan.com/VL

Kamilaroi/Gamilaraay Dictionary

With extensive consultation and collaboration with the Kamilaroi communities of northern NSW, and together with linguist Peter K. Austin, we developed and published this first-ever web dictionary (of any language) in late 1995. It has become well-known across the community, a resource used for language revival, and has inspired many other web dictionaries and digital language materials.

www.dnathan.com/language/gamilaraay/dictionary

Ajamurnda

I was the principal designer and contributor for Ajamurnda, an Anindilyakwa (Groote Eylandt) community digital archive project funded by a large grant from the Indigenous Languages and the Arts program (the first such grant won by the Language Centre). Project design included a new approach to community cataloguing and access. Metadata discovery sessions with Indigenous colleagues elicited and informed cultural categories for cataloguing and access to the 50,000-item collection. We developed cultural protocols for access to materials in observance of gender, family, clan, land, and ceremony.

Endangered Languages Archive (ELAR), SOAS University of London

ELAR is one of the world’s largest digital archives for documentation of endangered languages. I was the founding Director and Archivist for its first decade, leading the team who researched and built its innovative archive system, conceptualised and developed around two core values: usability, and delegated control over access. ELAR was the first archive system to provide negotiated access to sensitive audio, video and text resources, using social networking principles.

I published widely on the theoretical and practical exploration of documentation and archiving concepts and methods.

https://www.elararchive.org/

EL Publishing

EL Publishing was established as an Open Access online publisher for scholarly papers and reports on Endangered Languages, and in particular to host the journal Language Documentation and Description (LDD), founded and edited by Peter K. Austin. I built and maintain the online presence, databases etc. and provide editorial support. Language Documentation and Description is now published at the Universiy of Virginia.

URL: https://www.elpublishing.org

Ethno-ornithological World Atlas, Edward Grey Institute, Oxford University

Initially named the Ethno-ornithological World Archive, this is an innovative cross-disciplinary project designed to crowdsource and share cultural knowledge about birds. I was a consultant at the planning stages of this project, advising on archiving, database design, ethics, and technical matters.

URL: https://ewatlas.net/

My roles: consultant

Spoken Hokkien Online Shop

This website provides background information, samples, and an e-commerce ‘shop’ for purchase and download of language teaching and learning textbooks for Taiwanese (aka Hokkien, Min-Nan, Hoklo) written by Dr Mei-Li Fang. I designed, built, and manage this e-commerce site.

www.speaktaiwanese.com/

Turkish Suffix Dictionary

In partnership with Turcologist Professor Éva Á. Csató Johanson, who initiated the project and supplied the data, I designed and built the interactive Turkish Suffix Dictionary. It is amongst the highest Google-ranked sites for Turkish language learning.

My roles: co-creator, designer, programmer

http://www.dnathan.com/language/turkish/tsd

Spoken Karaim

Spoken Karaim was my first major interactive multimedia application, co-developed with Professor Éva Á. Csató Johanson, Dr Karina Firkavičiūtė, and a number of other members of the Karaim community of Trakai, Lithuania. Published as a CD-ROM, it was distributed to a large number of Karaim families in several countries including Poland, Ukraine and Russia.