The Arrernte Language Office at the Desert People’s Centre

The Arrernte Language Office at the Desert People’s Centre

Akwertethe akaltyele anthenh-anthenhe

— MK Turner & Christobel Swan

The Arrernte Language Office is a space for Arrernte Language work and projects.

It is available for Arrernte Language workers to use as a meeting and work space. It offers resources, such as a computer, access to the Batchelor Institute Library, internet, phone and email.

There is support from Batchelor Institute staff and links to other programs. It provides an opportunity for younger Arrernte people to get work experience.

The Arrernte Language Office is located in the Wellbeing Building at Batchelor Institute within the Desert People’s Centre (DPC) campus.

To use the office, contact Angela Harrison at CALL on 08) 89518344 or email angela.harrison@batchelor.edu.au.

Photograph: Irrarnte ‘Red-tailed Black Cockatoo’ is connected to the DPC site. Photo by Sue Court.

Elder in residence

Arrernte man Harold Furber is the Elder in Residence to Batchelor Institute, based at the Desert Peoples Centre campus.

Harold is also a consultant to the Arrernte Language Office. In this role Harold liaises with the local Arrernte community on behalf of the office. He also represents the Arrernte Language Office at forums and conferences and provides guidance to Batchelor Institute staff involved in work and projects involving the local Arrernte community.

In September 2015 Harold attended the Puliima Language and Technology Forum (http://www.puliima.com/) as a representative of the Arrernte Language Office. Among many other representatives of language centres and other community language projects, he contributed a video profile to the Gambay interactive map of Indigenous languages (https://languagesmap.com/map/), developed by First Languages Australia.

Video courtesy of First Languages Australia, via Gambay.

Harold, along with April Pengart Campbell from Ti Tree, is a Central Australian representative in the Western and Northern Australian Languages Alliance (WANALA (https://web.archive.org/web/20200308060020/http://wanala.org/)) a peak body which represents language centres and community language projects in Western Australia and the Northern Territory.