University of Queensland
Fryer Library
Flint Papers [6.062] (Fryer Library code number)

Form A Fieldwork recording report

Place: Weipa Mission.
Time: 8 a.m. Thursday 25/11/65
Gp: 326

{Comments on bottom of page (typed)}

The Mission authorities say that the American linguist, Dr. Kenneth
Hale, made a survey of Aboriginal vernaculars at Weipa not long ago, and
found that 15 dialects or languages existed there.

The authorities say that the Mission population, which now works at the
bauxite mines, includes a collection of elements from different tribes.
They speak "Aboriginal vernacular broken down and English broken down"
in communicating with one another. Their English also includes some
Island elements (e.g. the word capmary - see Group 1, boys 14-16)
meaning to cook (fish) by making a fire in a hole in the ground, and
then covering over the material to be cooked (suitably wrapped in
earth).

In the playground they speak "gibberish" which the authorities cannot
understand.

 URL: http://www.anu.edu.au/linguistics/nash/aust/flint-hale.html