Linguistic Organisation and Native Title: The Wik Case, Australia

by Peter Sutton

Classical Aboriginal societies in Australia have commonly been described in terms of social organisation and local organisation. This book presents rich detail on a third and related domain that has not been given the same kind of linguistic organisation. Basing their analyses on fieldwork among the Wik peoples of Cape York Peninsula, north Australia, Peter Sutton and Ken Hale show how cosmology, linguistic variation, language prehistory, clan totemic identities, geopolitics, land use and land ownership created a vibrant linguistic organisation in a classical Aboriginal society. This has been a society long in love with language and languages. Its people have richly imbued the domain of rights and interests in country—the foundations of their native title as recognised in Australian law—with rights and interests in the abundance of languages and dialects given to them at the start of the world.

506 pages, Paperback

Published September 9, 2021

About the author

International Educator, Speaker, Author

Walk straight. Talk straight. Sleep soundly. There’s a lot of hype, pseudo---science and plain pork pies in the world of social media — Peter combines his down-to-earth approach and his background as an international educator to cut through it all and deliver; to schools, small businesses and large corporations.

As a speaker, author and hands-on consultant, Peter pulls no punches when it comes to getting the most out of an organisation’s investment in social media. Peter’s approach has helped many schools and organisations develop a social media presence that would be the envy of any multinational.