Kinship Linguistics

How locating, identifying and translating the Kinship Teachings of Ancient Aboriginal Language can restore Australia’s Original Bio-Cultural Governance of the land to help all Australians.

Aboriginal language is not English, and it is not English using Aboriginal words.

Language is not just about the written word and how it is put together.?Language is also about how a people think systemically and unconsciously – their world view and idealistic goals they live by.

?In studying and translating the structure of my people’s Wiradjuri language, I have come to learn that our Aboriginal language also reveals how our Ancient people thought and the standards and rules (Lore) they adhered to was absolutely transferred through the way they developed and used language.

?Think about how you would transfer information today if you did not know how to write??It takes the use of different skills and abilities.?Not less than those who write, just different and I would argue much more creative.

I am so proud of the brilliance and adaptability of my oral cultures to create and embed an entire health, Governance, ceremonial, education, economic and ecological system without one single written word - it blows my mind. This unbelievable achievement should be lauded as a feat worthy of much respect and focus to be restored, used and understood by all Australians.

In Aboriginal language most if not all the meanings of the words in the sentences are built into the words themselves.?As a result the order the words are used in is a matter of choice linked to what is the most important thing at the moment to the speaker.?We control the narrative in the moment. Aboriginal language is different to English and European languages because it tends to link ideas in a Kinship network because they connect ideas according to how they are related to each other.

Why is Aboriginal language so different from English?

Language is about people, their lives, how they relate to each other and how they live together in their systems universe.

When you think of Aboriginal people’s language even when we speak English we say and write “we” when talking about ourselves and the Colonial Heritage and European speakers say “I”.?This simple difference identifies how we think and feel within our societies and systems.?What we reveal is our core subconscious motivation how we see the world.?Our inside identity never changes.?Putting my extended Kinship First so I can be happy and content from the Aboriginal Australian people and putting myself First so my family can be happy and content from the Australia people.

?To be an expert in Aboriginal Linguistics you have to be from a We speaking and thinking people to reveal and translate its Kinship origin.?

?Aboriginal language should not be alphabetised, because none of our words stand alone, just as no living thing stands alone.

What is Kinship Linguistics?

Kinship Linguistics is Aboriginal people taking back sovereignty over their own knowledge and governance systems.?It is similar to the fields of sociolinguistics and anthropological linguistics in some ways; however these two aforementioned areas do not have the Original Cultural context or Kinship First view to identify the core of Aboriginal language structure and use.?After all, we are talking about the earth’s earliest languages still in use today.

?Kinship Linguistics looks at what knowledge or world view you need to understand and interpret a language word.

If you pick a word out of my people’s language dictionary – Durrany for example.?Durrany means wind cloud.?Hmm we could presume to guess what that is, but what if you had the Kinship information about this word explained.?A wind cloud (Durrany) in Wiradjuri is a path or line of small fluffy clouds that emerge from the horizon that look like a road and tell you the direction of the wind.?We could leave it there and think well that is kind of interesting and could be information used in a project or my everyday maybe.?Colonial Australians would utilise it if it benefited their world in some way.?They may not worry about that words relationship to others or everything else.

In my Ancestors Kinship world, these particular clouds were called wind clouds because they would tell the hunters which direction the wind would follow.?Why is it important to know the wind if you are on land you might ask??Because my ancestors knew that all foraging animals face the wind when they eat and therefore they know which way to go behind them so they couldn’t smell or sense the hunters.?Thus, ensuring a more successful hunt.

Every time I see these clouds now I picture my ancestors watching from their camp, grabbing their weapons and tools and heading out to feed their family and I feel so happy and proud.

How could Durrany help Australians today?

Imagine you were a ranger and needed to trap invasive animals? How handy would it be to know how to do this easily?

What if you were a pilot or bush walker – isn’t is key to know the changeable wind directions?

What about if you just want to connect with the original living landscapes of your area?

Just one word and its incredible Kinship has so much to offer.

Imagine what a whole language can do……

Nola Turner-Jensen is a Community Language Research Fellow with the Indigenous Knowledge Institute at Melbourne University and chairperson of 5 Bats - an Aboriginal led Bio-Cultural Governance Company - [email protected]