Acknowledgements

First of all, I wish to acknowledge the group of senior Umpila and Kuuku Ya’u women, affectionately known as the old girls, who taught me their language and shared their stories: Maria Butcher, Winnie Claudie, Elizabeth Giblet, Minnie Pascoe, Susan Pascoe and Dorothy Short. They invited me to Lockhart River to start language work with them in 2002 and quickly directed our work to focus on documenting and describing narratives, which they viewed as fundamental both to understanding Umpila and Kuuku Ya’u and to providing a culturally grounded way for future generations to learn their language. I thank them for their friendship, and also for their support and encouragement in the examination and discussion of these narratives, and their permission to focus my PhD research on this. The old girls have now all passed away and are dearly missed, but they leave behind the language and cultural records to which they devoted so much time and knowledge.

Many other Umpila and Kuuku Ya’u speakers and members of the Lockhart River community also played an essential role in this project and in broader language documentation work. I would like to thank all those that contributed ideas for language work, gave permission for their images and voices to be recorded, supported transcription work or logistical aspects of the work, including: Norman Bally, Patrick Butcher, Wayne Butcher, Lorraine Clarmont, Brian Claudie, Albert Doctor, Ronald Giblet, Dorothy Hobson, Lucy Hobson, Moira Macumboy, Evelyn Omeenyo, Josiah Omeenyo, Lawrence Omeenyo, Beverly Pascoe, Veronica Piva, Maureen Sandy, Phillip Sandy, Stanley Short and Vincent Temple. Within the broader Umpila and Kuuku Ya’u community, I also acknowledge the younger generation currently carrying language work forward, particularly Julie Warrado, Krystal Dean, Joanne Omeenyo and Simon Butcher. It’s an honour to work with you all. This work also benefited from the support of many people and organisations in Lockhart River over the years, particularly the Lockhart River Aboriginal Shire Council who formally and practically supported my PhD research, and the Lockhart River Art Centre, Lockhart River State School and the Puuya Foundation.

This book is a revised version of my PhD completed at the Language and Cognition group at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics and the Department of Linguistics at KU Leuven. I was extremely fortunate to be supervised by Stephen Levinson and Jean-Christophe Verstraete, and for part of the project, Nick Enfield. Their guidance and feedback have shaped and improved this work in many ways. I would also like to thank the members of my manuscript committee and corona for their thought-provoking questions and insights, much of which has been incorporated into the revisions presented in this book: Eva Schultze-Berndt, Kristin Davidse, Birgit Hellwig, Helen de Hoop, Asifa Majid, William McGregor and Gunter Senft.

During the fieldwork and write up of my PhD, I benefited from discussions with many colleagues at MPI and Leuven including Tanya Stivers, Gunter Senft, Asifa Majid, Melissa Bowerman, Penelope Brown, Sylvia Tuffvesson, Kaoru Hayano, Niclas Burenhult, Kobin Kendrick, Joe Blythe, Mark Dingemanse, Lila San Roque, Michael Dunn, Ruth Singer, Mark Sicoli, Olivier Le Guen, Hilario de Sousa, Simeon Floyd, Elisabeth Norcliffe, Sebastian Fedden, Saskia van Putten, Ewelina Wnuk, Rebecca Defina, Hendrik De Smet, Bert Cornillie, Stefanie Fauconnier, An Van Linden, Freek Van de Velde and Dana Louagie. Thanks to Edith Sjoerdsma for taking care of administrative tasks of all kinds, and thanks also to the MPI technical support team.

This research has benefited from the wonderful collegiality of researchers of languages in Cape York. I would like to thank Bruce Rigsby, Athol Chase, Peter Sutton, David Thompson, Barry Alpher, Jean-Christophe Verstraete, Alice Gaby and Lousie Ashmore for their expertise, assistance and encouragement. I am especially indebted to the senior generation of researchers who mentored my initial work in the region, namely Bruce, Athol, Peter and David, and to Jean-Christophe for setting me up and supporting me through the PhD process.

I would also like to acknowledge the amazing community of researchers working on Australian languages whose conversations, reviews and feedback on conference or seminar papers have been so valuable. I name just few of you that are not already acknowledged elsewhere here: Michel Walsh, Denise Angelo, Susan Poetsch, Brett Baker, Felicity Meakins, Myfany Turpin, Maia Ponsonett, Candide Simard, Ilana Mushin, Nick Evans, Josh Dahmen, Jane Simpson, David Nash, Jenny Green, Patrick McConvell and Caroline de Dear. I also thank close colleagues at MARCS at WSU and in HAL at UNSW for their support: Debra Aarons, Mengistu Amberber, Sithembinkosi Dube, Anikó Hatoss, Caroline Jones, Leah Lui-Chivizhe, Hugues Peters and Mark Richards.

The research for this project was supported by a series of grants at different stages of the work including an AIATSIS Research grant (G2003/6763), MILR program grant, Department of Communication, IT and the Arts in Australia (6894A/281); ELDP funded Documentation of five Paman languages of Cape York Peninsula project (MDP0133); Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science PhD scholarship; KU Leuven Research Council (OT/08/011); ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language (CE140100041); the research was also informed by ILA projects (26573/67991; ILOC210165) funded by the Australian Government’s Office for the Arts.

I wish to thank Gunter Senft, editor of the Culture and Language Use series, for recognising the potential of this book as part of the series and for his helpful comments and unwavering patience and encouragement through the revision process. I also thank Kees Vaes at John Benjamins for his support during its publication. I am grateful to Jean-Christophe Verstraete and Kristin Davidse for their persistent advice to revisit my thesis for publication.

Institutional support and funding for preparing this manuscript was provided by the publication grants at the MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development, Western Sydney University and School of Humanities and Languages at UNSW. I am especially grateful to Caroline Jones at Western Sydney University, and Timothy O’Leary and Taylor Sherman at UNSW for making this support possible.

Finally, my heartfelt thanks to my family, Giles, Elanor and Toby.