Nyingarn is a project that gives access to Indigenous language manuscripts.

 

Nyingarn (nyingarn.net) is a project that gives access to Indigenous language manuscripts. These manuscripts can be hard to get as they are often held in state and national institutions, some distance from the speakers of the languages. Some are written in handwriting which is difficult to read. The Nyingarn project is working to locate and convert these manuscripts to text. In this workshop, participants will learn how to use Nyingarn; to transcribe and enrich their language manuscripts as well as search for material already available. The workshops will be guided by Nyingarn team members working in their own languages. 

Participants will learn the key features of the Nyingarn platform; joining manuscript images with existing transcriptions; producing transcriptions in minutes using optical character recognition (OCR); and editing and enriching their language material. 

Participants will need to bring a laptop.
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Dr Vicki Couzens, RMIT Vicki is researching revitalisation of cultural knowledges and practices with a focus on my Gunditjmara Mother Tongue Language towards living legacy.
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Theresa Sainty, Senior Indigenous Scholar, UTAS at the University of Tasmania. Theresa is Aboriginal Linguistic Consultant with the Palawa Kani Language Program
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Clint Bracknell is a musician, songwriter and ethnomusicologist from the south coast Nyungar region of Western Australia (Wirlomin Noongar). He is Professor of Indigenous languages at University of Queensland, and is interested in the links between Aboriginal Australian song and languages, emerging technologies and creative futures

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Sophie Lewincamp has a PhD in Cultural Materials Conservation. Sophie has worked with a range of communities to preserve at-risk cultural materials using engaged and culturally responsive methods. Sophie is currently the project manager of Nyingarn which seeks to make language manuscripts accessible and searchable for community language work. Sophie works to engage and train people in the use of the Nyingarn platform. Sophie also worked previously as a project manager for the Victorian Aboriginal Corporation for Languages.
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Thomas Watson is a Gangulu person who grew up off country in Darwin and Melbourne. Thomas has gathered a comprehensive collection of Gangulu language sources and uses Nyingarn as a tool in his language journey. Thomas was the University of Melbourne RUIL Indigenous Scholar in 2022, and is a Nyingarn Steering Committee member. 

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Allyra Murray is the Project Officer at the Research Unit for Indigenous Language (RUIL) at the University of Melbourne and a proud Nyangumarta, Yorta Yorta and Torres Strait Islander woman. At RUIL Allyra provides operational support to the team and 50 Words project.

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Bill Forshaw is a non-Indigenous linguist based at the University of Melbourne's Research Unit for Indigenous Language. Bill's work supports the teaching, learning and use of Aboriginal languages by language communities. Bill has experience working in both language maintenance and language revival contexts.