Lost In Translation: Language, Power And Space In Early Colonial Australia

Linguistic engagement between Europeans and Aborigines in early colonial Australia took numerous forms, occupied diverse spaces, shaped power relationships between the two groups and altered the trajectories of many individuals' experiences. With language one of the only means of attempting to bridge a vast cultural gap, linguistic interaction between these groups is a fascinating lens through which to interpret the European - Aboriginal 'encounter'. In this essay a number of questions will be raised relating to cross-cultural language engagement and its wider ramifications in a historical sense. Most importantly, these will concern: the nature of language interaction between Europeans and Aborigines in this period, the spaces that it occupied and how these might be interpreted, the balance of agency and power in cross-cultural language dynamics, and whether these interactions had positive, negative or 'untranslatable' consequences for the interlocutors involved. Through tackling these broader questions several conclusions will emerge. Firstly, that these linguistic spaces, be they missionary stations or courts, were physically challenging and often paradoxical in the language interaction they induced and forms of communication used therein. Secondly, that despite the wider destruction experienced by Aborigines in these encounters and linguistic spaces, Aborigines were possessed of considerable strategic agency here, and this perhaps extended to female Aboriginal interlocutors. Thirdly, that linguistic actors, be they European or Aboriginal, often appear to have become isolated, confused or excluded. Ultimately, whilst taking into account the discrepancies within these fields of analysis, something appears to have been 'lost in translation' in early language interaction between Europeans and Aborigines; be it in terms of space, power or individuals, there was usually a sense of confusion and accompanying difficulty in these dynamics, something that perhaps informed (and was informed by) wider reactions in the cross-cultural encounter itself. With these areas of enquiry laid out, it is important to clarify several of the approaches mentioned, situate them within a wider context and identify some of the problems inherent to such approaches, and, indeed, the subject matter as a whole. First of all, it bears mentioning that not all aspects of language dynamics can be covered here; that would be an improbably large task, given the fundamentality of language to human interaction and the impossibility of documenting the vast majority of (even significant) linguistic exchange. The nature of language, and particularly the study of it in a historical sense, is also one that perhaps lends itself, at least in this case, to qualitative rather than quantitative analysis; to broader trends and identification of them rather than quantification and definitive response. The former approach will thus be employed here. A crucial issue in a qualitative analysis of language dynamics is that of the language-culture nexus, or more specifically, the issue of how language and its historical role might be separated from culture and approached as it will be in this essay. Given the breadth of material already written on this subject, suffice to say that for analytic purposes, Wharf's view of language and culture having 'grown up together', and Michael's that they are thus 'inextricably intertwined' make ready bedfellows. That is to say that disentangling the two is difficult, and that it makes more sense to focus on spaces and interactions where language had a discernible primacy not seen elsewhere, rather than being continually drawn into this debate. It is not to say, for instance, that missionary attempts to learn languages in early Australia were the only socio-cultural dynamic in play in such places and relationships, but that at missionary stations, Aboriginal court cases and so on, inter-cultural linguistic engagement assumed an importance above and beyond that which it did in other areas. These areas, such as the Wellington Valley Mission, Lancelot Threlkeld's Mission in Lake Macquarie and the various courts where Aborigines were confusingly brought to trial, thus form, along with individual language intermediaries such as Bennelong and Biraban, a crucial part of the language dynamics of early colonial Australia, and key subjects for analysis. The idea of certain spaces seeing more linguistic interaction than others is important not only within Australia, but in a wider geographic context. For Australia, in its early colonial period, did not see the level of cross-cultural engagement and linguistic penetration witnessed regionally in New Zealand and Tahiti, and, more widely, in India. As Carey notes, by the time of Threlkeld's first mission to the Aborigines of Lake Macquarie in the mid 1820s to acquire their language, this process had already been finalized, and resulted in codification, amongst the Maori of New Zealand. In a cultural sense, Brantlinger shows that the indigenization of colonial novels, literature and language was much more prevalent in the aforementioned countries than in Australia. Owing much to Enlightenment hierarchies of civilization and stadial development, in which Aboriginal Australians were perceived to be at the very bottom, these points highlight the fact that Aboriginal languages and culture attracted less interest than those elsewhere, perhaps making them all the more worthy of analysis. A commonly held view amongst those who shunned interaction with Aborigines in any form, and one that clearly needs dispelling in a historical study of language dynamics, was that Aborigines were linguistically and culturally homogenous. Indeed, there were approximately 250 languages spoken in Australia at the time of European settlement, and the variety and complexity of them, even within a geographic area as small as New South Wales (NSW) is highlighted in the map below.

A clear issue with an analysis of the nature of language interaction across such a broad and heterogeneous area, and a period spanning 70 years from 1788, is that it will succumb to the misjudgement made by early colonialists. However, the recognition of non-homogeneity of Aboriginal languages is crucial in itself, and accounting for all the linguistic and cultural discrepancies here would be too great a task; this limitation is thus recognised, and broader patterns in these engagements sought, rather than individual ones, be they with the speakers of Wirradhurai at Wellington Valley or Awakabal at Lake Macquarie. Another pressing issue with the study of European-Aboriginal language engagement is the lack of clear Aboriginal voice in European accounts, and the complete paucity of Aboriginal written records, as well as the exclusion of female Aborigines from European tracts. Fortunately, as language interaction was a prime factor in the sources used here, this problem is not as profound as it might be elsewhere, though the limits to which one can reconstruct Aboriginal interpretations of language dynamics in early colonial Australia should continually be borne in mind; even in the accounts used for this essay, the direct Aboriginal voice is rarely heard. This limitation perhaps contributes to the fact that the historiography of Australian language dynamics is not vast; though writers such as Carey, Troy and Damousi are important here, application of other colonial theorists such as Hyam and Ghosh will necessarily inform this essay, and primary analysis will be of added importance. That so much of the communication that took place in this period was non-verbal and thus largely undocumented is another limitation. As highlighted by Amery and Mulhauser, the years following the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788 were 'characterised by minimal contact between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people...limited to chance meeting where little verbal communication took place. Gesture played an important role in Aboriginal-non-Aboriginal interaction in this early period.' If one extends this analysis of the importance of non-verbal communication towards the 1850s, as would seem sensible given the lack of linguistic penetration already mentioned, it is clear that the sources used in any analysis of language engagement must be regarded as only part of the story. Gibson explains a similar point more elaborately, whilst also indicating the complexity of language when embedded in a long-developing cultural context: 'language is not only a heard thing. It is also muscular and neurological. And it is temporal and spatial. It is choreographic therefore. Synaesthetic, therefore. Visual, auditory, proprioceptive, inextricably poly-sensory'. What he is referencing here is not only the value added by gesture and non-verbal acts to language interaction, but also the cosmological differences inherent to Aboriginal (and European) modes of communication. A commonly-cited example is provided by Troy, that 'English speaking people had difficulty in their efforts to find words for direction and time in the Sydney language because notions of time and space in Aboriginal language are very different to those expressed in English'. This idea, of certain concepts complicating language interaction due to differences in their cultural perception between two groups, is part of one that will widely inform this essay, and requires further clarification. It is also one that perhaps limits this essay, given its specific cultural background. Mentioned above is the idea of something being 'lost in translation' in these linguistic engagements, be it in regard to forms of communication or the lives of individual actors. What is referenced here is the notion of 'untranslatability', but not in the traditional linguistic sense of a word in one language having no direct equivalent in another. In this essay, rather, untranslatability will be used in a number of senses, for language itself, for cultural ideas and for experiences. Examples might include the lack of Aboriginal words for European objects, the specificity of European ideas regarding death, and the failure of many interlocutors to 'translate' aspects of one culture to another in an experiential sense, and the negative consequences the entailed experiences might have on them personally. In other words, 'translation' here is the accommodation, processing and understanding of various cross-cultural phenomena, extending through the gamut of the language -culture nexus. Though an abstract take on the term 'untranslatability', it seems one apt to describe the nature of Aboriginal-European linguistic engagement in early colonial Australia, and the way this played out in various spaces, power relationships and individual experiences. With this term clarified and some limitations of the approach employed recognised, an analysis of these criteria, in three broad sections, can be accomplished. And be it in the physically oppressive and often paradoxical spaces in which language had a certain primacy, the strategic agency of both male and female Aborigines in such engagements, or the perhaps 'untranslatable' struggles of individual interlocutors in a personal sense, the nature of European-Aboriginal language interaction will be revealed. Though a complex topic, and one analysed in broad terms, it may ultimately be said that within these spheres of linguistic engagement, there was indeed something 'lost in translation'.

Chapter 1 The nature of linguistic spaces and how they might be interpreted will form the first area of analysis. To enable this, the physical characteristics and demands of these spaces will be considered, as will the types and forms of both language and communication therein. As mentioned, and as identified by Damousi in her important work Colonial Voices, Missionary stations and Court procedures formed two of the only spaces where cross-cultural language engagement could be considered a primary dynamic, with the education system another one, although this arguably occurred later than the early colonial period. So although it should be borne in mind that there were other places where linguistic interaction did occur, the ones selected here, in particular the Wellington Valley Mission to the Wirradhurai, are the ones that are not only best documented, but from where the most insight can be gleaned. As Carey notes of the primacy of language interaction in these places, 'unlike the fleeting encounters reflected in explorer word lists.....missionary encounters had a different intellectual trajectory, one that had as its objective the acquisition of language as the prelude to a deeper cultural exchange'. This reinforces the idea that Missions can be considered linguistic spaces, at least in the context of early colonial Australia. With this said, a wider interpretation of these spaces is rendered more credible. On a basic level, spaces of linguistic interaction were often physically oppressive and isolating. Of course, this could be ascribed to the living conditions and spaces of Aborigines in general, but it is interesting in itself to consider that linguistic interaction was perhaps so culturally rejected that it physically rendered would-be language intermediaries on the cultural periphery, dragging them out of their natural social situations into physically oppressive and unfamiliar ones. The sense of isolation and desolation continually comes across in missionary accounts of their situations. Threlkeld wrote of his first Mission to the Lake Macquarie Aborigines in 1824 that 'the appearance of this mission is very unpromising, there being nothing here to encourage the feebleminded....but all dry, dry very dry scattered bones, in the midst of a waste howling wilderness', a godforsaken image echoed by William Watson's depiction of Wellington Valley in 1835: 'this is our third anniversary in this lonely wild. A wild it was when we entered on it, and a wild it remains'. From these two comments the sense of linguistic space as a peripheral and isolated one is already visible, confirming Carey's idea of the 'burden' placed upon missionaries who experienced the 'sheer difficulty of living at what was then the outermost limit of the frontier of European settlement'. This 'burden' might be seen in a slightly different sense concerning European-Aboriginal interaction in the courts, wherein the physical demands of arriving at court for interlocutors, witnesses and suspects, particularly Aborigines and isolated European interpreters, often proved too much. As James Backhouse noted in 1838, 'the blacks of Australia....are unacquainted with the English language, and are generally remote from courts of justice'. The general observation of physical distance, which problematized language interchange in the court system, is confirmed in several court cases, such as R. v. Kirrup (1845) where the interpreter, Dr. Whatton, is said to be '200 miles' away, or another documented by the South Australia Register in May 1867 where the Aboriginal suspect Palgulta is said to have been marched miles to Adelaide, 'barefooted, probably over stony roads, with gyres upon his wrists', only to arrive and find no interpreter present. Thus, albeit in different ways, the physical distance of linguistic spaces and its effect on the actors therein can already be seen as a problem, and one that could isolate and prevent language interaction. Yet the physical isolation of language intermediaries in these spaces was perhaps rendered even more problematic, in the case of the missions, by the time-consuming nature and physical danger of these environments; further barriers against meaningful interlocution. The physical danger of these spaces is confirmed by Wellington Valley missionary James Handt, who remarked that 'the white men around us....render our situation out here very unpleasant, and even dangerous, especially when we are travelling in the bush'. Completing the physical picture of missionary space as one of isolation, harshness and danger that almost precludes cross-cultural engagement, another missionary, James Gunther, wrote in 1837 that 'there is always some engagement or other of this, or a domestic nature...that I can find no time for studying not even for the Native language, not to speak of general studies'. What emerges then, even on a basic level, is the problematically demanding nature of these linguistic spaces in a physical sense. Physical distance from other cultural reference points would affect cross-cultural linguistic actors, and physical oppressiveness, be it in the form of dangerous stockmen, desolate geography or the continual need to subsist, seemed to have been common problems, pervading, from the start, attempts at genuine linguistic engagement in these spaces. Taking basic physical demands as an issue in linguistic spaces, the often paradoxical cultural and communicative issues constructed in such physical environments render these spheres of interaction all the more problematic. Most obviously, the fact that language exchange was mediated through overtly religious or legalistic terms in the missions and the courts arguably prohibited a meaningful exchange of language itself; these ideas were so bound up in wider cultural identities that to use them as a framework for European-Aboriginal interaction seems self-defeating. Indeed, the mediation of linguistic engagement in cultural terms that had no relevance to wider Aboriginal ideas appears logically inconsistent, and thus, to a certain extent, paradoxical. This runs parallel to a view espoused by Goodwin, who argues 'that interpretation relies as much on the mediating agency of the particular delivery systems used as on the information being mediated', reflecting the idea that the form of communication, in this case overly complex religious tracts and legalistic jargon, is as important as the communication itself in the exchange and interpretation of language. Examples abound of these paradoxical attempts to engage linguistically in mission and court language spaces, and the cultural indifference and incomprehension demonstrated in response to it. Handt, for instance, writes 'I find it very difficult to impart to the Natives an idea of God. They have some idea of an evil spirit, but none of a good one, and when I sometimes am endeavouring to speak with them about the Supreme Being and their souls, they seem to be quite indifferent, and direct their attention to something else'. What is hinted at here is the difficulty of translating linguistic and cultural mores into the missionary space in a cross-culturally amenable form, and, as Tadmar argues, this was perhaps complicated further by the specificity of Biblical texts and other utilized forms of communication. She argues that the Bible and preachers of it were involved in the construction of their own 'so