The Diyari materials on this website have been reviewed by members of the Dieri community and several international scholars from a range of research disciplines. They have provided the following comments.
Reg Warren, Dieri Community Elder, South Australia
Thanks again — great to see and hear that you’re still doing great work with Diyari Language
Prof Anthony C. Woodbury, Linguistics Department, University of Texas at Austin, USA
A brilliant example of digital philology, the Reuther Dictionary publications are a monument, all at once, to the richness and brilliance of the Diyari (Dieri) language and people; to the lifelong dedication of the 19th century Lutheran missionary Rev. J. G. Reuther and his meticulous 20th century translator, Rev. Philipp Scherer; and to a succession of linguists and language documentarians, led by Peter K. Austin, who created these beautiful presentations of the original dictionary and its parts, interpreted on the basis of careful linguistic study of the Diyari language by Austin and community members.
Assoc Prof Ray Kerkhove, Department of Education, University of Southern Queensland
A major linguistic achievement that will benefit any person interested in Australia’s first languages and cultures. It will serve as a model for other parts of Australia.
Prof Jeff Good, Department of Linguistics, University at Buffalo, USA
This rich site provides a high-quality selection of resources on the Diyari language, and its presentation of the lexical materials compiled by J.G. Reuther from the mid-nineteenth to early twentieth centuries is especially valuable. Of particular note, is the creation of new resources based on Reuther’s materials focusing on the place names, example sentences, and comparative data found within them.
Assoc Prof Brooke Danielle Lillehaugen, Haverford College, USA
The Diyari website brings together a rich and diverse set of resources related to the language and culture of the Dieri people created over decades of detailed research and commitment to community. The materials range from lexical resources to blogs and even podcasts. The rich, interconnected set of materials benefit from a digital format of publication and the user will find multiple avenues for engagement with the corpus and supplementary materials. The resources accessible through this website will undoubtedly facilitate significant future research and activation of this knowledge, which the team takes care to explain should be done in close consultation with the primary knowledge keepers.