At Arwarbukarl CRA our language activities are divided into two seperate categories, they are our local work on reviving and maintaining the local Awabakal language and then our national work which involves language technology development and training and more.

This section on our Arwarbukarl website will focus on our local activity, for our national work please visit the Miromaa Aboriginal Language and Technology website at www.miromaa.com.au

Stay tuned for more to come

Published Books

A Grammar for the Awabakal Language - 2nd Edition

Extract from Introduction

This document constitutes a treatise on the reconstruction of the grammar of the language known as Awabakal. In most places, it is like any descriptive grammar developed for a language, laying out the detectable patterns of phonology, morphology and syntax. But one fact that keeps this project somewhat distinct from many others is that the corpus of data comprises a set of sentential "illustrations" compiled by the Reverend Lancelot Edward Threlkeld; one set was published in 1827 and another in 1834. There is no other source with equal authority vis-à-vis sentence structures and the like that is not itself supervenient on the work of Threlkeld. Threlkeld published another work in 1850, but by this time he had developed a "phono-semantic theory" (see below), and was more focussed on his translation of the Gospel According to St Luke, and "illustrations" therein are either excerpts from the translation or present his own ruminations on modes of expression.

Another feature that distinguishes this work is that it is intended from the outset as a work for the sake of the local community and is not produced for the strict purpose of advancing the science of linguistics. For this reason, certain conventions have been adopted to facilitate the possibility of reintroduction. These conventions are noted and explicated; it is ultimately a matter for a prospective community of speakers to adopt or reject all such conventions.

Hard Cover - 300 pages
ISBN 0 9804680 0 7

Limited Edition Special Price $100 incl GST (stocks limited)

An Introduction to the Awabakal Language - 2nd Edition

Extract from Foreward

The project to recover the language now known as Awabakal is based almost entirely on the admirable philological work carried out by the missionary the Reverend Lancelot Edward Threlkeld. He produced a number of published works documenting the language as well as he could manage given that he lived prior to the development of any methods of modern linguistic science. This current sketch of the grammar of Awabakal is based mainly on two of Threlkeld's documents, his Specimen of a Dialect (Threlkeld, 1827) and An Australian Grammar (Threlkeld, 1834), though use has also been made of A Key to the Structure (Threlkeld, 1850), and some of his manuscripts. Threlkeld left many gaps in his treatment and left us many obscurities, not least an unclear account of the sound system of the language. The current reconstruction of the sound system is based on considering Threlkeld's own English accent, given his parentage (from Cumberland near the Scottish border) and the fact that he born and raised in Devon in the late 18th century. With his background in mind, I have made a detailed study of his orthographical system, especially in terms of scrutinising the way he hyphenated words in his word list (Threlkeld, 1834), and his various recommended sound correspondences. On this basis, I have arrived at a system of orthography and spelling that approximates the sound system of the original language to the optimal degree available from the documentation.

Hard Cover - 143 pages
ISBN 0 9804680 5 2

Limited Edition Special Price $75 incl GST (stocks limited)