Talk:palawa kani

milaythina mana

If mana means "my", shouldn't milaythina mana mean "my land" instead of "our land"? Pronoein (talk) 05:21, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

I would tend to agree, except the text is definitely translated using "our". It's such a sparsely documented language unfortunately we can't be sure right. Akerbeltz (talk) 08:58, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

I think the translator simply did some mistakes because he was a beginner discovering a foreign language...
Also milaythina nika milaythina mana ("this land is our country") contradicts that nika="their". nanya-mapali would be expected, or something like that. Pronoein (talk) 07:35, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't think it's necessarily that - the translation may just be more idiomatic rather than literal. I'm unsure about changing the translation of the two text samples as they're the original texts off the boards/speech. Akerbeltz (talk) 10:15, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

It's common for languages to use the same word for this or that and they, so nika is not a problem. For mana, it may be that it's just first person, or it could be that no word is known and so 1sg was extended to 1pl and 2pl. — kwami (talk) 06:41, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

Numbers

Apparently:

• kati: "ten"
• katin: "cipher , digit"
• "13" is said and written 3 and 10, written 31
• ka: "deca":
• ki: "hecto"
• ku: "kilo"

I guess 9999 would be talitalikatalikitaliku. Pronoein (talk) 07:35, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

I never saw 9999 written down, so pass? Akerbeltz (talk) 10:15, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Other anomalies

• mina takara on milaythina mana ("I stand on my land") : takara is not exactly "walk" here.
• mukra mana laymi putiya nayri ("my dog is never not good"): or did the English translator confounded with "my dog is always not good"? Could he distinguish the difference? laymi ("never") doesn't seems to be negative and could be translated by "always, most of the time".
• takara ("walk") and laykara ("run") seem to indicate that lay- be a superlative, so in laymi -mi would be a frequence, or a quantity expressing through metonymy ("being a piece of...") or metaphore ("being similar to ...") frequency, like "days" in french, jours, in toujours, tous les jours ("always, everyday").
• nina tunapri mina kani seems to rather ask "you know my language?" Pronoein (talk) 07:35, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

I think the main specialits are all women, incidentally. laymi may cover the concepts of "ever" AND "never" but I've only ever seen it glossed as "never". And again, in the absence of more data it would be hard to analyse palawa much further that already done on the page... Akerbeltz (talk) 10:20, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Gender

• -na- seems to designate feminity, delicacy, youth, liquidity, flexibility, giving life, circle, moon and menstruations, cycles. Person, swimming or dancing, elegance, understanding, remembering, being spiritful, seem feminin concepts, mostly like in french.
• -ka- seems more virile, direct action like hunting, dying, moving with bones hitting the ground, violent things and movements... I'm just speculating. Pronoein (talk) 07:35, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Unless you have access to sources I haven't come across, the above two sections are getting dangerously close to WP:OR - you may be right of course but that would be a dangerous deduction to make. Akerbeltz (talk) 10:15, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm speculating and I would like an expert on the topic to correct those impressions. The article suggests that there is a much larger knowledge outside wikipedia than exposed in the article (i.e. , "There is obvious enthusiasm for the language especially among younger people and an increasing number of people able to use the language to some extent, some to great fluency."), and they could modify the article. My questions are directed to them. I'm not suggesting changes to the main article, but mentioning the points that require the attention of an expert, in my opinion, because they are intriguing or confusing. Pronoein (talk) 13:22, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, you're right; we'd need a published source though and that's unlikely to happen in a hurry as the Tasmanians are keeping close tabs on the language. Most of this article is based on snippets (the speech, the interpretation board, the short article in the Gaelic mag and a few bits and pieces out of newsclippings) - it's the community ownership thing. I'm keeping a regular eye out for more data but I don't think we'll find much in a hurry. Akerbeltz (talk) 14:44, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

@Akerbeltz: I realise this was from a long time ago, but if at all possible if you can provide some info here on the Gaelic mag you're referring to above it'd be a great help. Wading through the edits to try and locate it is something I'm prepared to do, but would rather avoid ;) ReverendPete (talk) 23:58, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

Dictionary

I added some verbs from the corpus:

• ningina: "get"
• makara: "stop" Pronoein (talk) 07:35, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Which corpus? Akerbeltz (talk) 10:15, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

The Phrases. Pronoein (talk) 13:14, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

@Pronoein: I realise this was from a long time ago, but it'd be great if you can supply here and not on the main page itself any citations you may be able to recall for those verbs (yes, folks, I realise that the user doesn't seem to have edited anything else since and may have been lost to the wind, however nothing ventured, etc.) ReverendPete (talk) 23:56, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

Censorship request

This article was mentioned in a recent Wikimedia transparency report. Tangerine Cossack (talk) 06:04, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Aboriginal Language

July 2012

A Tasmanian aboriginal language center demanded the removal of the English Wikipedia article on 'palawa kani', claiming copyright over the entirety of the language. We refused to remove the article because copyright law simply cannot be used to stop people from using an entire language or to prevent general discussion about the language. Such a broad claim would have chilled free speech and negatively impacted research, education, and public discourse—activities that Wikimedia serves to promote.

I think it's actually a copyright violation Lindaseaborn (talk) 09:04, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

@Lindaseaborn: I'd be interested in citations as to how it is copyright infringement. It would certainly make the case to appeal to the 'editors' of WP much easier. I'm just a humble luser, but I hope you can indulge me with a bit of (perhaps) De Bono's lateral thinking. I do not doubt your firmly held belief, just that with no evidence provided I think it would be unreasonable for an average person to accept even at the face level the claimed copyright in good faith. Personally, and I must again emphasize my IANAL status here, I suspect that there is insufficient international case law to indicate possibly it is copyright-able hence my query below regarding what is going on elsewhere. I look at (off the top of my head) Klingon or Java for recent cases involving language and copyright. Admittedly one may claim they are far more nerd languages - and I cite them because that's sort of the limit of my 'expertise' - however I believe they are legitimate languages of different types. I'm also intrigued as to how a claim of copyright on a language interacts with, say TRIPS and how Australia interacts with the EU over their Geographical indications and traditional specialities in the European Union whereby we do not call our Sparkling White Wines by the French designation. That's to suggest, a non-Tasmanian Aboriginal person may use a Tasmanian Aboriginal word to describe something, however without formal approval it is not permitted. However without any case law to back this up, it would be difficult for WP - a US based non-profit with global editors subject to various local laws - to earnestly follow the intent of Aboriginal Tasmanians. To continue on, I'm also mindful of how (as I understand it (again, IANAL)) recipes are not copyright-able, however the description of their methods and their presentation and naming can. Thus, I return to my previous comment stated below that the maximum of that which should be accepted by Wikipedia is that which has been accepted by the Nomenclature Board. This would not, however, preclude others from adding their own information to this page however gleaned. But if a strict effort was kept to those with verifiable third party citations as well as proper account usage it's not impossible that this matter could be resolved. But I must emphasize that I believe (again, IANAL), I doubt it would be impossible, say, to stop some words and phrases being added by other people. I note for example that there are some phrases and words on the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre page that would not meet my simple 'geographical place names only' test. That is because these phrases are from a single verifiable online source (as far as I can easily tell, though I'm no researcher) thus preclude them from being used on the Wikipedia entry. However these phrases would appear to have been used elsewhere in public. Thus it would be difficult to stop a third party researcher to claim that usage of such a phrase is verified as belonging to a language, and thus having it added to this (or, in similar circumstances, any other reconstructed language) page. Anyways, I know I'm just rambling here a bit. I'm super eager to sort this one out as I recognize the importance of this topic. Which reminds me, the question I didn't get to ask at the lecture mentioned below is whether towns such as Ringarooma which, I believe, is an Aboriginal Tasmanian word, would also be included on the list of place names. Personally, I think the answer is a clear Yes, however again clear citations would be needed. I'm still of the opinion that large chunks of this article should simply be thrown out on the grounds of lack of citation. Anything from TAC that can be cross checked through the nomenclature board and LIST is a no brainer. Everything else, I think, should be moved over here for Talk as to whether it should be included on the main article or not. Highly personal opinion alert: I think there's a huge chunk of uncited stuff that should just get tossed out at that first basic test of citability. That's my Wednesday evening 2c anyways. ReverendPete (talk) 10:47, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

@ReverendPete: Ringarooma is not named under the dual naming - ie Aboriginal initiated. This means it has (probably) been applied out of context. I know the name Ringarooma belongs in that region, but probably not to that town/locality. That is, even though it is a locality name, it is almost certainly misapplied. Lindaseaborn (talk) 22:22, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

@Lindaseaborn: I do appreciated that Ringarooma is not part of dual naming, however from casual observance of conversations I believe it has been acknowledged as a word from, or associated, with Aboriginal Tasmanians. It's unclear to me whether it is part of the current palawa kani language. I mentioned it as an example of a word that may, I believe, legitimately appear on this page so as to foster discussion about the language whilst perhaps not being a part of the language. As such, I think it would not necessarily be fair or reasonable to have someone remove that word - although of course it would depend on the context of how it's presented. ReverendPete (talk) 22:30, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

@ReverendPete: there's a page called Tasmanian Aboriginal languages, or something similar, I think that is where such a word would be presented. Lindaseaborn (talk) 08:02, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

There are most certainly major problems with this page, least of which is the header indicating the lack of references and sources. I understand from a recent lecture at the Royal Society of Tasmania that speakers of palawa kani only permit their language (as it currently stands) to be used outside their cultural group when specific location names are used. Personally, I would be inclined to follow this suggestion, permitting that we can reach the citation requirements of any WP article. As I understand it all that is publicly available from published multiple independent sources are specific location names. I also note that any editing, to keep inline with WP policies, should be done with signed in accounts and ideally from a recognisable address so that any vandalism that occurs on this page can be more clearly tracked. However, given digital/online culture, I'm not entirely sure that this would work longer term. I'd be interested in seeing how other reconstructed languages are dealing with this issue so that perhaps someone prepared to follow the WP foodchain upwards can force the issue better assist WP in navigating such waters. ReverendPete (talk) 00:01, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

Importance

I note "This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.". Whilst I'm not sure of which project that refers to, I'd like to consider that for WikiProject Australia, if not WikiProject Tasmania, its importance be upgraded to if not the highest level as close as possible. I'm unsure of the procedure for appealing the increased importance, though. Anyone? ReverendPete (talk) 10:51, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

I changed it to 'high', given that floods and elections are ranked that high. Not sure it's high importance for all of Oz, but there's a sub-tag for Tas within Oz. Also changed to the conglang template, which I think should also be high, given that there's some govt recognition.

Also changed from 'start' to 'B' class. Not sure of that, but from the description, 'C' seemed to be a little low. There's a lot of material wanting, but that's due to the nature of the subject. — kwami (talk) 06:52, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

I recently starting helping with the importance assessment of articles within the scope of WikiProject Australia. Guidance written on Wikipedia:WikiProject Australia/Assessment#Importance scale indicates that assessment should be based on the "probability of the average reader of Wikipedia needing to look up the topic (and thus the immediate need to have a suitably well-written article on it)". Using a tool called "Page views Analysis" which advises that there were 16,003 visits to the article for the year ending 31 October 2019, I re-assessed the article as having either 'low' or 'mid' importance. I subsequently used 'mid'. Regards Cowdy001 (talk) 02:37, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

Copyright concerns

I've thought about this and I'm unsure if the copyright assertion over palawa kani meets criteria required by WP, clearly it was not accepted when previously asserted by the Tasmanian Aboriginal community, as described above. I would like to try something different, let's discuss.

I am a non-Aboriginal person from Tasmania and currently live here. I've interacted with the local Aboriginal community since I was a teenager, over thirty years now. I worked with an Aboriginal controlled training organisation for a year helping to develop teaching materials about how to work effectively with Aboriginal people and we drew on best practice materials from around the world for non-Aboriginal people to constructively understand and reduce the racism that Aboriginal people are harmed by. I too went to the Royal Society talk on palawa kani a couple of nights ago in Hobart. The final slide warned us about the WP page. I was given permission to have a go at resolving the problem (without that permission I wouldn't be here).

So, what is the problem? There seems to be a clear understanding and agreement that prior to 1993 palawa kani did not exist. Remnants of the prior languages did, but it is the work of the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre language program, over 26 years now, that has researched each word in great depth and painstakingly re-constructed a language using the old words as close as possible to language that has been spoken on this land for thousands of years. It is also, I believe, common knowledge that Tasmanian Aboriginal people faced a very near extinction. In fact when I travel one thing people tend to "know" about Tasmania is that the Aboriginal people were "wiped out".

So a people who survived the experience of being almost wiped out, regrouped and after being a successful part of the movement to establish Aboriginal legal services, health services, arts and land hand backs, decided to tackle language revival. I use the word revival because it is linked to the concepts of cultural identity. They have worked on it for more than twenty years and have kept it within their own community, releasing language publicly if and when they decide to. The word lists that have been published here are stolen and being used without consent. So I think now that breach of copyright is not the issue, it is stolen language materials that is the issue.

Perhaps one way to deal with it is to require that anything published here have a citation to a reputable source? I believe this is already a requirement of Wikipedia (as per other comments on this talk page)so perhaps that standard could be applied, which would go a long way to fixing the problem.

I think the problem is actually theft of Indigenous materials (in this case language) Lindaseaborn (talk) 08:19, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

@Lindaseaborn: I completely understand the eagerness of Tasmanian Aboriginals to maintain control of the language. I should try and explain my thought process. Funding is found, via TAC/Crown/Private Investors (I have no idea what mix, if any, but this is I think not an unreasonable guess), for work to commence on reconstructing the language. The Crown, at least in Australia, tends to retain (C) on all works it funds in Universities, Government, and their associated Government Entities (quasi-corporations etc.), unless there's an agreement with external parties (eg, bio research done at Universities paid for by a corporate - copyright will tend to be shared on the produced results). At this point, though I do not doubt someone has (C) on the dictionary and other materials, it is thoroughly unclear to me who actually has (C) on palawa kani materials. I've not seen the dictionary. I've seen a few words here and there. I've seen memes floating around. For language copyright, I'm only familiar with constructed languages so am going on more gut instinct however... In Australia, there's no fair use provision in (C) law, however there is in other jurisdictions around the world. Hence, someone from some jurisdiction in Europe takes a look at a news article published, effectively by The Crown because Australian Broadcasting Corporation is State controlled (although I'd emphasize if this article had been written by another publisher), the (C) in the article would rest with them - so I'm not 'blaming' The Crown in this instance although goodness knows I have plenty of issues with their approach to (C) in this country. Anyway, under Fair Use doctrine that exists elsewhere in the world (but not in Australia), parts of that article are referenced or copied into this Wikipedia entry. Even within Australia, I'm struggling to find where such behaviour would be considered theft. To the actual topic of theft, I'd emphasize that there is no such crime as theft in Tasmania or federally in Australia. At least in Tasmania crime is Stealing. The doctrine of [Mens rea] would suggest, I believe, that the person in said European country may not appreciate that what they have done is considered by the Tasmanian Aboriginal Community to have been Stealing - that's to say their culture is that Fair Use and Good Faith apply and they believe they did nothing wrong. To conclude this thought process, I'm not of the belief that the situation described here would be Stealing, though I could completely understand why the local community may feel that something has been stolen from them. I think the best that should be aimed for is verifiable, independent, neutral point of view articles that clearly state that which has been made public. And in cases where, for want of a better phrase, 'unauthorised releases' may have been made in the past, citations made for those releases and clear explanations made that some sections may be out of date (eg, that ABC article).

@Lindaseaborn: Whoops, forgot to mention a Shower Thought I had this arvo. Let's take a random single word from the phrase list from the kunanyi boards - 'pakana'. If I was interested in this word, I may do a search for it, and just to be sure I didn't mix it with returns from other places I'd add Tasmania to the search term, so we end up with this set of results. Looking through those results, I see a link to a company called Pakana Services in Tasmania. I take a look at their webiste, and their About page states '‘pakana’ means Aboriginal Tasmanian'. I think it would be not unreasonable for a casual observer with no knowledge of palawa kani nor the sensitivities involved, that pakana translates to Aboriginal Tasmanian and thus feel emboldened to add that as a singular word to this page. A bit more searching leads to the following page from TAC that states numerous other phrases. Certainly, while (C) exists on the TAC page, again I return to the concept of Fair Use (which again doesn't exist in Australian law) and citational reference (which is a minefield). Whilst I agree older version of this article was very poor, I'm not entirely sure how an insistence that these words are not for public use given they are published on TAC's own page. Further searching on the 'pakana' word turns up Sinsa Mansell's work with Salamanca Arts which introduces the casual observer to the word which suggests to me it translates to dance or dancing or similar. From the materials presented on this Talk page, I've not seen any argument that states use of these words fall under copyright protection - which is a very specific law - to the extent they should not be reproduced. It seems thus that palawa and pakana are interchangeable, and to me that would be notable and should be included. Should this apparent interchangeability be included in a WP article? I would state yes. Should other words that seemingly have meaning be included? I cannot see why not. However, I firmly believe that there is a sensitive way to do this. I hope you can understand where I'm coming from with this problematic issue of casual observers in other jurisdictions doing their own thing and potentially adding entries. So I get back to the other reply I added, and that is who actually has the (C) on the material. Again, IANAL, particularly Copyright. But I've been around the music composition, performance, computing, and ISP industries a while and can kinda grok the feel of the landscape in a few jurisdictions. With the searching methods I've mentioned here, I hope you can see that it may be a case of whac-a-mole. Urgh, I should go eat. It's been a long day and I'm getting cold. Hope you and yours are well and warm. ReverendPete (talk) 10:04, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

@RevPLaw: Your examples of text that has citations is all fair enough. I'm talking about the word lists that appear to have come from internal TAC documents that are not publicly available and therefore don't/can't have any citation. That's also what I'd call "stolen", documents that the creator has not put in the public domain. I note that the other Reconstructed language on wikipedia has a very brief entry "about" the language and doesn't have anyone trying to list all the words, etc.Lindaseaborn (talk) 23:08, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

@ST47: What are your thoughts? Is it reasonable in WP terms to require items posted (eg your example of "kati: 10") to have a citation? I think that would get around a lot of the concerns that WP has posted palawa kani word lists that the Aboriginal community have not yet made public. Lindaseaborn (talk) 08:36, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

@Lindaseaborn: Yes, it is reasonable to expect that to have a citation. I'm not very familiar with this language, but I would imagine that there are academic papers where some of that vocabulary might be found, that could be used as a source? A few unrelated thoughts:

• Look at Most common words in Spanish#Mark Davies for example. A list of words and their translations is fine, this isn't a violation of copyright because the meaning of a word can't be copyrighted. It isn't a creative exercise to think of the Spanish word casa and write down house. Even a list of words and definitions can seemingly be used without copyright risk.
• However, there is a risk that copying too much might be considered a copyright violation. For example, the Spanish Wiktionary wikt:es:casa contains several examples or more in depth definitions. If someone was to copy the text of that page in its entirety, that would be a copyright violation. If someone was to read that page, understand that casa means somewhere where people live, and add that definition to a Wikipedia article with a citation - then that's just how we build an encyclopedia. In short, a list of definitions is fine to use, but be careful about copying longer texts like example usages or in depth explanations.
• Finally, remember that we aren't building a dictionary. Having some vocabulary is useful, again to use an example, see Spanish language and Spanish grammar for how we might use some of that, but we don't want this article to be 99% simple vocabulary. Use example vocabulary to talk about the language.

I'll keep this on my watchlist - I have to head to a meeting right now, but I'll try to stop by later and help some more. ST47 (talk) 16:56, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

@ST47: ​Great. I think those two things - citing and not turning the page into a dictionary, would make a great improvement. You mentioned not being very familiar with this language, you may be interested to know that it has a very particular relationship with Wikipedia. For your information here is a short excerpt from a 2014 article:​

​"​In its first-ever transparency report, the Wikimedia Foundation revealed a handful of odd stories about takedown requests sent to Wikipedia. Among the claims on public-domain books and monkey selfies was a curious request from 2012: that Wikipedia remove a page on the Tasmanian language palawa kani, because an aboriginal resources center owned the rights to the language itself.The argument against Wikipedia’s palawa kani page, however, is even more complicated. For one thing, palawa kani is neither an organically developed language nor a completely invented one. It’s part of a 20-year project to reconstruct and unify up to a dozen extinct Tasmanian indigenous languages, of which only fragments have been preserved. In addition to managing palawa kani’s development, the TAC promotes its use within the aboriginal community and sets rules for who can use the language, and what they can do with it.

Further complicating matters, the Tasmanian Aboriginal Center (TAC), which filed the complaint, isn’t simply arguing about US or even Australian copyright law. It’s appealing to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which it says allows it control over how the language is used.

TAC language program coordinator Annie Reynolds says that palawa kani should not become available to the general public "until aborigines themselves are familiar and competent with it." A use policy for the language, sent to The Verge, asks any non-aboriginal person or company to submit an official request if they want to use the language for any reason. Words for geographical features, plants, and animals are acceptable, but they draw the line at using them for "farms, office buildings, educational facilities, homes, streets, etc. which have no connection to collective aboriginal values."

Indigenous intellectual property rights have been a topic of research and discussion for decades now. Often, they come up in the context of "biopiracy" — using indigenous medical knowledge to create and patent drugs without informing or compensating the groups behind them. In many cases, they feel intuitively ethical. But they can be difficult to square with existing copyright law.

For one thing, complaints often rely on international treaties that have little bite in national courts. The Wikipedia palawa kani page includes sample text that could be copyrighted, but Reynolds maintains that under UN agreements, the TAC holds rights to not only those phrases but the entire language. She admits, however, that these can’t be legally enforced unless countries adapt them into local law.​"​

https://www.theverge.com/2014/8/13/5998273/who-owns-a-language-wikipedia-palawa-kani-raises-old-debate Lindaseaborn (talk) 13:56, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

@Lindaseaborn: @ST47: Best I can tell, chunks of your removal was from Australian Broadcasting Corporation, [[1]] [[2]] and [[3]] and it would seem they are TAC authorised releases. Nothing has been presented to suggest otherwise. It distresses me that you've admitted a non-NPoV, yet you've seemingly repeatedly edited this page without acknowledging this policy. I believe I've tried to steer the conversation in a direction to improve edits. I am inclined to undo some edits, trim the content down, place citations next to them linking to these articles. However, it somewhat follows that I further have concerns about citations to TAC, as I believe they are very much non-NPoV pieces. I strongly urge you to reconsider editing the page directly, and use this Talk page as suggested by NPoV policy, to recommend edits to the main page. ReverendPete (talk) 23:49, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

@RevPLaw: I'm quite happy for anything that has citations to go back up, noting @ST47:'s point that the page shouldn't be used to "build a dictionary". Before, more than 2/3 of the page was just word lists, rather than an entry that informs *about* the language. A lot of even that was un​-​cited. I've added references from reliable sources, eg The Conversation, National Museum of Australia and the Australian National University. I am also pleased that you are here @Akerbeltz:, as the major contributor of the word lists. You may also be interested in the article posted above. ​My recommendation is that ​word lists that go back up be kept fairly simple. That is, it's not a "competition" to see how many words can be "got" from the Aboriginal community, against their wishes, and published here. I think it's quite clear that they'd like protocols to be followed and permission obtained to post palawa kani here. One thing to consider is that just because they gave permission for words to be used by ABC or HCC, doesn't mean that they also give permission for the same words to be published here. ​I understand that there is no law forcing any editor on wikipedia to respect that position, however there is also no obligation to cause offence either, especially when it doesn't add to the quality of the page. I think there is a way to post words that are out in public domain, in a way that illustrates the language and to have a respectful page ​that focusses on the topic, eg origin of the language, the development of the language etc ​which ​makes a higher quality page than what was there before. Lindaseaborn (talk) 13:56, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

@RevPLaw: ​I've now read the policy on closeness, and neutral point of view etc. I note that the first step is to let the editor know your concerns, I saw the banner there but I was unaware that you had these concerns with me, until now. I think you have taken my position statement to be a statement of conflict of interest, whereas I consider it to be about subject matter knowledge and advocacy, particularly advocacy for a quality, cited page.​ I'm happy to discuss major edits here rather than just make them. On neutrality, I don't believe there's any such thing. It can be code for "white, male, middle class" perspective. What is more important is self awareness about how your biases affect what you do, and openness to having your unconscious biases pointed out to you. I'm comfortable with my ability to seek quality information, and to be open to discussion and even change my view point. I am very sure that there is no benefit to me or anyone close to me, in anything on or not on this page. Lindaseaborn (talk) 14:14, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

@RevPLaw: so I've just seen the personal post from you - two days ago? I assume the issues you raised there have been responded to here so no need to repeat myself (eg the Copyright issue). Lindaseaborn (talk) 07:15, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

@RevPLaw: I've been trying to figure out your adamance that I have a conflict of interest .... I think you may have misunderstood my statement that "I was given permission to have a go at resolving the problem (without that permission I wouldn't be here)." I think you may be interpreting that to mean some kind of official delegation. I meant that as a personal ethical stance (think: "nothing about us without us"). I discussed the idea of trying to improve this page with someone who's opinion I value. I was of the opinion that it must be possible to have a public interest, accurate page that wasn't culturally offensive. I made a point of making a statement that I had sought 'permission', because I think it is good practice when working with the Aboriginal community (or any other marginalise group) to not engage in talking "about" them, without at least checking in with someone that you're not going to inadvertently add to misinformation. I wanted to make that clear in the hope that other people would also consider doing the same. I got a positive response, from, like I said, someone who's opinion I trust, and on that basis proceeded. If the response had been, no, stay away from it, out of cultural sensitivity I would have done that. Now if you are going to argue that cultural sensitivity is also a conflict of interest, we are going to need to agree to disagree. Have I understood you correctly? Lindaseaborn (talk) 07:54, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

Ok maybe I can help. The main initial source was an article from a Gaelic magazine based (Cothrom, the first in the bibliography) on an interview between the Gaelic author and a woman called Theresa Sainty, Lutana Spotswood and Joanne Knight (all prominent figures in the palawa kani scene as best as I can tell) covering a varienty of terms, phrases and place names. It was quite a long piece and contained quite a bit of stuff, including imagines of the pakana luwana liyini CD with additional text on it. The material from the interpretation boards were from photos of, well, the interpretation boards I got from a friend. None of the material added is from internal sources not destined for some form of public consumption i.e. they were all articles, speeches or publicly visible interpretation boards. If we restore the material, I can go through and add line by line citations though that may take me a while. Akerbeltz (talk) 10:28, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

@Lindaseaborn: Slow down, you're posting so much it's getting hard to keep track ;) So to begin with, I want to re-iterate that nothing (that I added) to the article came from "internal sources". I don't have access to internal sources, I live in Scotland and have never been to Tasmania, never mind the offices of palawa kani and wouldn't dream of nicking any internal stuff. It was all gleaned from that article in the Gaelic magazine, pictures of the interpreation boards and sources on the internet - it's been a while but I recall there was a language resource centre in Australia which had some articles. So it's a bit of a case of Tell your secret to the wind, but don't blame it for telling the trees i.e. if you want to keep a language totally under wraps, then doing interviews and putting it on public interpreation boards is not a great idea. And it's not really the same as biopiracy, nobody here is making any money off this tiny article or indeed likely to do so.

Also, nobody is trying to create a dictionary. There were some samples of connected text, some tiny sections on grammar and an extremely modest wordlist showing at the most a couple of hundred words and hardly anything has been added to it for a long time.

I'll go through the materials and add individual sources, though I'm not sure how ones references an interpretation board! Akerbeltz (talk) 10:20, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

@Akerbeltz: Did you get a chance to read that article - https://www.theverge.com/2014/8/13/5998273/who-owns-a-language-wikipedia-palawa-kani-raises-old-debate I'd be interested to know your thoughts. Lindaseaborn (talk) 21:18, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

@Lindaseaborn: I read the article back when it made the news. My position back then was as it is now and as I described above. Nobody hacked into any internal stuff, it was all "out there" either on the web or in print publication or on notice boards. And I re-iterate that nobody here is trying to collate a dictionary or take over palawa kani or anything. The interest is solely to provide a very small snapshot of what the language looks like in terms of structure.

I do get the desire to retain ownership of this language as much as possible and I have no issue with that. But at the same time, I think it's unrealistic to both use a language publicly and to try and then enforce/regulate in full about what happens with this "data" once you put it out there. Akerbeltz (talk) 10:45, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Revival or Reconstruction

From materials I've read, but cannot point to right now apart from the statement of the Tasmanian Aboriginal Corporation, I was under the impression that palawa kani is a language mostly based on comparative reconstruction methods and is not necessarily a revived language as stated in the opening sentence - except there are some clear revitalised words, phrases and songs. Thus although I deeply suspect the opening sentence isn't correct, I'm unsure how to fix it. ReverendPete (talk) 23:19, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

@RevPLaw: I've made an attempt (at fixing the issue you raise, which I agree with), using some of the text that was there previously. palawa kani is already grouped under Constructed Languages in a WP taxonomy so probably best to leave it there - I'm not a linguist so don't have the expertise to determine that. Technically it is probably a Reconstructed Language, as explained by the language program that developed it. What do you think of the revision, does it address your concern?Lindaseaborn (talk) 07:59, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

{reply to|Lindaseaborn}} I'd suspect there's possibly two issues with that edit. Firstly, the principal citation at TAC seems to emphasize that it is not a construction but a recontruction - "... through a linguistic process called ‘reconstruction’. ‘Reconstruction’ is a linguistic term... It does not mean ‘to construct’ a language, or ‘to create’ one". Secondly, there's possibly an issue with this source being used for this claim as it is possible to suggest it is a non-neutral source. I'm inclined to let that totally slide because there are better hills for me to die on, however I'm not at all confident other Editors would feel similar. However I would gladly argue with other such editors that the secondary source for that sentence, that is the article in The Conversation (website), should be considered sufficiently neutral and independent. That article also states palawa kani is reconstructed and nowhere claims that it is a constructed language and that these two citations together would confirm the 'reconstruction' status of the language. Certainly from the lecture this week, I feel it was emphasized that the language is reconstructed - however that should not be used as it's 'original research', one of the greatest sins on WP (which was my main issue with this page going back some time and why I'd set a Watch on it). The categories I see the page currently listed in are Reconstructed Languages and Language Revival, that is to say I don't see a place where it's referred to as a Constructed Language in WP taxonomy. ReverendPete (talk) 08:28, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

@RevPLaw: Yes, you are correct, it is Reconstructed in the taxonomy. The previous section that I put back was incorrect and I didn't notice. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Reconstructed_languages Lindaseaborn (talk) 22:58, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

I was going to make the same edit. In the linguistic sense it's definitely a constructed language not a language revival, as there was never a single Tasmanian language. I found a really good source which talks about how the language was created. "Language workers like Theresa are heavily involved in the word selection process through which palawa kani was built, brick by brick, word by word." [...] "Based on these factors a single word is selected to be the official community word for a certain expression or phenomenon" [...] "As one language, palawa kani involves the elision and flattening of multiple historical languages under the one inclusive umbrella". I'm not sure about describing it as "reconstructed" either, as again it's based on up to a dozen different languages and not a single historical language or proto-language. IMHO it's more akin to zonal constructed languages, but quite unique in that all of the source-languages are extinct . Ivar the Boneful (talk) 05:58, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

@Ivar the Boneful: I'd never heard the term zonal constructed languages before, but had heard of Tutonish because of my interest in copyleft. I'm eagerly looking forward to reading through that Oceania article you've located this weekend. Thanks! ReverendPete (talk) 08:21, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

Zonal languages are e.g. pan-Slavic or pan-Romance. They're for where languages approach intelligibility, so that people can communicate with their native language and just a bit of help. But many of the Tasmanian languages were not that close. They may have been in several different language families. If you created an interlanguage for Slavic, Romance, Hungarian and Basque, that wouldn't be considered a zonal language, but might be closer to what we have with palawa kani (depending on which source languages were used). — kwami (talk) 04:56, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

• Comment Agreed, Palawa kani is neither revived nor reconstructed. The first would apply to a specific language. The latter would apply to either a language, if the material needed to be interpreted, or a family. (This isn't an attempt at reviving or reconstructing the Bruny Island language, for example.) The AIATSIS says it's a composite, which is more accurate: a composite of surviving materials, used to construct a language of ethnic identity. That said, many of the words are reconstructed, via trying to figure out what they could've been to have been transcribed the way they were in English pronunciation spellings. So I think the word 'reconstructed' is fine re. vocab rather than the language as a whole. I added an example for Hobart. — kwami (talk) 04:23, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
• Comment Its neither a revived or reconstructed language, its a constructed lanaguage. There being two significant points - one a lot of the language has been lost, and hasn't been adequalty recorded, and two, its an amalgam of different languages, put together to make one language. It can't be a revival of one language, if it is sourced from different langauges. Deathlibrarian (talk) 03:06, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

COI?

I went over the article and removed the COI tag. The article was a bit of a mess, but I'm not sure what the COI tag referred to. If someone puts it back, could you comment here on why?

I added the ownership problem to the lead, as I think it's important. As for stolen dictionary lists, WP is not supposed to be a dictionary. We delete word lists from language articles all the time even when there's no claim of (c) infringement. So it's entirely appropriate to delete them from this article. A few closed classes of words that are citable, such as pronouns an numerals, are sufficient. It would be more interesting to cover the grammar, if anything's been developed.

I also moved the 'dual-use' names to the article on Tasmania and only summarized here. More likely to get exposure there. — kwami (talk) 04:31, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

removed sample text

Since both texts were eulogies for the same event, and one of them could be only half confirmed, I'm moving that one here.

Half attested in Greg Lehman (2008) 'Two Thousand Generations of Place-making', in Frank Valclay (ed.), Making Sense of Place. National Museum of Australia, Canberra.

|milaythina nika milaythina-mana |This land is our country

|pakana laykara milaythina nika mulaka |Aboriginal people ran over this land to hunt

(not in published text |pakana-mapali krakapaka milaythina nika |And many died here

|tapilti larapuna, tapilti putalina |From Eddystone Point, to Oyster Cove

|tapilti kunanyi, tapilti tayaritja |From Mount Wellington to the Bass Strait Islands )

|waranta takara milaythina nara takara |We walk where they walked

(not in published text |nara taymi krakapaka waranta-tu waranta tunapri nara |And they will never be dead for us as long )

|milaythina nika waranta pakana |As long as we remember them

|waranta palawa, milaythina nika |This country is us, and we are this country

— kwami (talk) 07:58, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

Phonology

Palawa kani has two trills, written <r> (ɹ) and <rr> (r).

Also, regarding one of the inaccurate assumptions made when Palawa kani was reconstructed (that CVr(C) sequences in transcriptions are taken to represent syllables with long vowels or those with a vowel quality similar to Australian English, when it is likely the "r"s were to be pronounced) - is it also possible that rC sequences were a digraph representing retroflex consonants? After all, retroflex consonants are pretty common for mainland Australian languages... -Corsican Warrah (talk to me) 17:00, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

And some more notes: the sequence <tj> is given the pseudo-phonetic transcription <tch> in pronunciation guides made by TAC online (e.g. here). Given the orthographies of mainland Australian Aboriginal languages, the sound represented is probably /c~ɟ/. Likewise, <ny> is /ɲ/. --Corsican Warrah (talk to me) 11:11, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

All lower case

It would be nice to know why the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre decided to only use lowercase letters. (The ref just says "a decision by the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre to discontinue capitals", with no indication why.) Mitch Ames (talk) 03:36, 29 January 2023 (UTC)