LANGUAGE, LAND & SONG
STUDIES IN HONOUR OF LUISE HERCUS
Edited by Peter K. Austin, Harold Koch & Jane Simpson
Luise Hercus has been a leading documenter of Australian Indigenous languages for over 50 years. This collection of 37 chapters honours her work and her inter-disciplinary approach to language documentation.
IMAGE: Mick McLean, a speaker of Wangkangurru and Lower Arrernte, pointing out the Rain country to Luise Hercus in August 1966, explaining how the Rain had come across the sandhills to the west, hitting the Peake Range.

Language, land and song: Studies in honour of Luise Hercus

Editor(s): Peter K. Austin, Harold Koch & Jane Simpson

Year of publication: 2016

ISSN/ISBN: 978-0-728-60406-3 (Batchelor Press print edition ISBN 978-1-74131-325-3)

Batchelor Press has also published a print version of this volume. See the Batchelor Press catalogue page.

This collection honours the work of Luise Hercus (1926-2018). Luise Hercus was 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.

About the volume

Luise Hercus (1926-2018) was a leading figure in the documentation of Australian Indigenous languages for more than 50 years. This work began in 1962, in a decade when research on these languages intensified considerably. Luise’s work ranged from salvage studies of barely remembered languages in Victoria to full grammars and dictionaries of languages of South Australia. Her research has been characterised by a broad study of language in its total context, and includes considerable documentation of the songs, stories, geographical knowledge and biographies of the speakers. The 37 chapters of this volume pay tribute to Luise’s accomplishments and present further studies, primarily relating to Indigenous Australia, in the spirit of her inter-disciplinary approach to language documentation.

See also:

Catalogue of papers

Click a link in the Download column to download the paper to your device

Link Title Author(s) Pages
Link Introduction Harold Koch, Peter Austin & Jane Simpson 1-22
Link Luise Hercus’ research in the Lake Eyre Basin, 1965-2005 Tom Gara 23-43
Link ‘I am sorry to bother you’: a unique partnership between Luise Hercus and the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Grace Koch & Kazuko Obata 44-56
Link ‘Don’t tell them we’re coming!’: learning to document languages with Luise Hercus David Nathan 57-69
Link Travels with my mother Iain Hercus 70-76
Link Land cruising with Luise Pam Macdonald 77-89
Link Exploring Australia in the age of the four-wheel-drive vehicle Peter Sutton 80-101
Link Daisy Bates in the digital world Nick Thieberger 102-114
Link ‘Writing about music is like dancing about architecture’: integration of multimedia into linguistic and anthropological publications Rachel Hendery 115-130
Link Before Hercus: pioneer linguists in the south-east Barry Blake 131-144
Link Documentary sources on the Ngarigu language: the value of a single recording Harold Koch 145-157
Link What’s up with /u/ Gavan Breen 158-171
Link Serial verbs in Waanyi and its neighbours Mary Laughren 172-193
Link The unwritten Kamilaroi and Kurnai: unpublished kinship schedules collected by Fison and Howitt Patrick McConvell & Helen Gardner 194-208
Link Common lexical semantics in Dalabon ethnobiological classification Sarah Cutfield 209-227
Link Emotion nouns in Australian languages: a case study and preliminary survey Maïa Ponsonnet 228-243
Link Working verbs: the spread of a loan word in Australian languages Jane Simpson 244-262
Link In the margins of some Australian dictionaries: exploring the etymology of berigora David Nash 263-276
Link Language and land in the Northern Kimberley Claire Bowern 277-286
Link Why Waway? The Proctor map and the getting of song in New South Wales Jim Wafer 287-303
Link A forgotten brouhaha: lessons in authenticity and authority Ian Clark 304-317
Link Place names as clues to lost languages? A comparison between Europe and Australia Robert Mailhammer 318-329
Link Modelling prehistory from language distribution: the Karnic example Tony Jefferies 330-343
Link The making of a Simpson Desert clever man Kim McCaul 344-357
Link The travels of Wipaṛu the Whip Snake John C. McEntee 358-376
Link Two traditional stories in the Ganai language of Gippsland Stephen Morey 377-391
Link Traditional knowledge and invasive missionary culture: Australia and the South Pacific Niel Gunson 392-402
Link Travelling ancestral women: connecting Warlpiri people and places through songs Georgia Curran 403-418
Link Women’s yawulyu songs as evidence of connections to and knowledge of land: the Jardiwanpa Mary Laughren, Georgia Curran, Myfany Turpin & Nicolas Peterson 419-449
Link Mustering up a song: an Anmatyerr cattle truck song Myfany Turpin, Jennifer Green & Jason Gibson 450-467
Link Under sentence of death, Melbourne Jail Edward Ryan 468-479
Link Why historians need linguists (and linguists need historians) Laura Rademaker 480-493
Link Linguistic and cultural factors that affect the documentation and maintenance of Australia’s traditional languages Jo Caffery & Mark Stafford Smith 494-504
Link The Kaurna diaspora and its homecoming: Understanding the loss and re-emergence of the Kaurna language of the Adelaide Plains, South Australia Robert Amery 505-522
Link Key factors in the renewal of Aboriginal languages in NSW John Giacon & Kevin Lowe 523-538
Link A hitch-hikers guide to Aboriginal language retrieval and revival Mary-Anne Gale 539-554
Link Tracing the new: processes of translation and transculturation in Wirangu Paul Monaghan 555-566