Yijarni

About the Author

Felicity Meakins (FASSA, FAHA) is a Professor of Linguistics at the University of Queensland. She is a non-Indigenous field linguist who specialises in the documentation of First Nations languages in northern Australia and the effect of English on these languages. Felicity has written 22 books with different Indigenous communities on their languages, including Bina: First Nations Languages Old and New (Black Inc, 2024). She has worked as a community linguist as well as an academic over the past 25 years, facilitating language revitalisation programs and conducting research into First Nations languages. She won the 2021 Linguistics Society of America’s Kenneth L. Hale Award by the Linguistic Society of America (LSA) for this work and was made an Australian Research Council (ARC) Kathleen Fitzpatrick Laureate Fellow for the period 2025-2030. Felicity was also the joint winner of the 2021 Australia Museum Eureka Award for Interdisciplinary Research and the 2024 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Tamarra: A Story of Termites on Gurindji Country (Hardie Grant).

Erika Charola is a teacher and linguist who started working with Indigenous people in the Victoria River District of the Northern Territory in 1996. Erika worked for Diwurruwurru-jaru Aboriginal Corporation, facilitating a Gurindji language program at Kalkaringi School (1996 to 1999) and documenting Gurindji stories. She later had a similar role working with Ngarinyman and Bilinarra speakers in other Victoria River area communities. She has worked as an interpreter trainer and NAATI (the National Accreditation Authority of Translators and Interpreters) examiner in Kriol. Erika has taught English to adults in Spain, Germany and France, and to international students at Monash University in Melbourne. Erika is a co-compiler of the Gurindji to English Dictionary (Batchelor Press, 2013) and co-editor of Mayarni-kari Yurrk: More Stories from Gurindji Country (Batchelor Press, 2016). She has been employed at Kalkaringi School since 2016.