When the German missionaries of Lake Killalpaninna decided to preach the gospel in Dieri, they did not only chose one vernacular out of a dozen or more of the region and thus placed a threat on those other languages, they also changed the character of Dieri language and societ y significantly. The missionaries often not only recorded the languages, but also tried to transform the „heathen‟ into „Christian‟ ones. The main problem was how to translate central abstract Christian ideas. The missionaries had to teach ideas that had no correspondents in the indigenous culture. There were four solutions to this problem: paraphrasing the term62, creating new words out of existing morphologic elements63, using terms already in existence in the language64 and finally adopting loan words from European languages65. Whichever method was used, the missionaries changed the vocabulary of the languages, they Christianised and westernised their concepts. Furthermore, structural changes were often made, because the missionaries only knew the categorical model of classic European languages. They used declination and conjugation categories often inadequate for the indigenous languages recorded. (Wendt 1998:29ff)
Mühlhäusler identifies three characterisations of a peoples‟ changeover from orality to literacy:
Promoting the transition from low-information to high-information societies
Offering the possibility of storing information over long periods of time
Supplementing face-to-face interaction with written communication over long distances
(Mühlhäusler 1996:212f)
62 It was sometimes criticised that imprecise formulations resulted from this method. (Wendt 1998:29)
63 Homann and Koch used this method with the Dieri. (Wendt 1998:29)
64 These words were often laden with meanings pointing backwards to pre-colonial beliefs. (Wendt 1998:29)
65 Mainly Jesuits used this method.
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Point one concerns the change from traditional oral and, according to age, status, sex etc, limited transmission of knowledge to a written knowledge available for everyone at any time with no need of an instructor. The second point is closely related to the first and concerns the maintenance of knowledge independent of its producer. Knowledge is not „lost‟ any longer with the death of the knowledgeable person, but can be accessed over long periods of time.
The last point made considerable impression on the indigenous Australians. Ferguson tells an early story of Aboriginal perception of literacy:
Mr Ernst Jacob, who was out on the run looking after the sheep, sent word to
“Father” Vogelsang, who was in charge of the store, that he would like him to send him some tobacco. A native boy was sent with the parcel together with a letter in which it was mentioned how many plugs of tobacco were forwarded. The boy, knowing what the package contained, could not resist upon the temptation, and took a few plugs and hid them in order to pick them up on his return trip. The boy was questioned by Mr Jacob, and immediately admitted his guilt. The boy was at loss to understand how the letter, which was closed up, had managed to see him taking the tobacco.
(Proeve 1946:21 in Ferguson 1987:228) This example shows that the basic conception of literacy was missing, something a person, grown up in a Western society, cannot imagine. Literacy is so much part of western history and everyday life that it is not surprising that formerly oral societies were perceived as inferior and even degenerated to the early missionaries.
Previously, literacy had often been regarded as a mechanical process, filling
the vacuum left by the removal of unsavoury heathen practices and […] by giving people literacy […] simply [adding] another useful skill to their repertoire. […]
[But] literacy in all instances has been an agent of social and linguistic transformation, whose linguistic outcome interestingly is not a strengthening of the local languages, but the acceleration of their decline.
(Mühlhäusler 1996:215) Yet, it is the people, not literacy, which is the active force in the transformational process that accompanies the introduction of literacy. (Kulick & Stroud 1989:286 in Mühlhäusler 1996:215)
Mühlhäusler gives short accounts on a number of case studies proving this point of view.
The Maori realized that the key to the new world of the Europeans with all its evident power was the written word (Parsonson 1967:44 in Mühlhäusler 1996:216), and the missionaries tackled “the problem of Maori illiteracy as if it was a boulder to be rolled away from Christ‟s tomb.” (Crosby 1986:246 in Mühlhäusler 1996:216)
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In the case of Tolai, a language of Papa New Guinea, early literacy almost solely concentrated on non-indigenous issues, such as administrative and religious concerns. The Tolai did not make any attempts to commit their traditional oral literature to writing. (Mosel 1982:162f in Mühlhäusler 1996:220f) This decision was based on the differences between oral and written literature. In traditional societies, only certain elders were „allowed‟ to tell the old stories and their status and power assured the truth of the narrative. Who would verify the stories if they were written down? How could you make sure that only the „right‟ people, the ones supposed, would read it? The Western notion of literature is connected to the belief that one can „fix‟ a certain time on paper and leave the work for future generations, so that they may learn from former mistakes or right decisions. Western culture quotes the great authors to reassure opinions and beliefs. Indigenous societies used oral literature as a transportation of knowledge, with each narrator adding his or her bit of experience and opinion to it so as to continually extent or decrease the contents. In this tradition, there is no need for writing.
For the smaller languages of Papa New Guinea, further effects are pointed out. Literary work was seldom coordinated and thus success or failure of a program often depended on the efforts of one person. Only reading skills for the comprehension of religious texts were taught but practically nothing was done with regard to the production of literature. (Neuendorf &
Taylor 1977:417 in Mühlhäusler 1996:222) Additionally, there was often a complete failure to teach the development of critical reading skills. In fact, “the written word itself became sacred, leading to extreme difficulties in trying to develop a state of critical awareness.”
(Lynch 1979:14 in Mühlhäusler 1996:223) This way of teaching literacy in very limited contexts did not provide the people with the knowledge of the various options literacy opened to them. (Mühlhäusler 1996:223)
In the case of Fijian, a language of the Pacific area, the development of vernacular literacy was only a transitional stage to literacy in English. Fijian gradually looked more and more like an inferior version of English rather than a means of asserting Fijian identity, as written Fijian was mainly used in the context of the new religion and not the traditional one. That way more and more concepts influenced their new religious and political world view.
(Mühlhäusler 1996:228f)
These short case studies provide the path for a number of generalizations on the impact of literacy on indigenous languages and in effect on indigenous culture as well:
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Linguistic diversity is lost66
Vernacular literacy is transitional67
Literacy brings about conceptual change.68
Literacy leads to social restructuring69
Literacy is seen to reflect the truth70
The following chapter will look at these effects in Dieri.