FREE BABY BOOK NOW IN NOONGAR LANGUAGE

Annelise Jansen and Denise Smith-Ali

A Noongar language version of the book Better Beginnings Baby Ways is out.

A WA Government spokesperson says Maawit Mart/Baby Ways will be given to Aboriginal families living on Noongar land and aims to help narrow the gap between literacy rates for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal children.

Translators Annelise Jansen and Denise Smith-Ali said it was interesting translate certain English words that had no Noongar equivalent.

“There’s just no direct way to translate ‘splish, splosh, splash into Noongar’,” Ms Jansen said. “So we worked around it by adapting the word for ‘swimming’ which is one of my favourites: ‘djibadjobooliny’ to be ‘djobooly-djobooly’ and adding ‘boorndily!’ at the end as a marker of exclamation and excitement.”

Arts minister David Templeman and Aboriginal Affairs minister Tony Buti launched the book in Rockingham yesterday.