John Rudder
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John Rudder, Ph.D., has studied the Australian Aboriginal languages, of Arnhem Land (Gupapuyngu) in the Northern Territory and the state of New South Wales (Wiradjuri), Australia.
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[edit] Working life
In 1964, Rudder went to Arnhem Land as a teacher, and later as a community development worker and educator among adult Indigenous Australians. In that time he learned to speak the language of the region, and analysed its grammar and syntax.
He sought to gain formal educational qualifications after moving to Canberra, and has since gained a Master's degree in Anthropology focussing on Aboriginal Classificatory Theory and Cognitive Structures and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Aboriginal Anthropology focusing on Yolngu Cosmology (focusing on beliefs regarding the nature of existence and how the world is ordered.)
Since the early 1990s, Rudder has been heavily involved, with Stan Grant, an elder of the Wiradjuri people, in reconstructing the Wiradjuri language that was at that time effectively dead, even though this is arguably the biggest tribe in NSW. He took anthropological studies and records amounting to the records of fewer than 2,000 words and applied the language and cognitive analysis he had previously applied to the Yolngu language, to begin to reconstruct the Wiradjuri language. With Grant, who provided a sense of the language remembered from his youth in World War II among Wiradjuri-speaking family and tribal members, they have established training sessions to teach the language across the Wiradjuri tribal range. Intensive weekend camps and other sessions have recreated a small number of Wiradjuri speakers who are beginning to re-establish the language. For instance, these speakers are beginning to write songs and poems that are then being taught to children.
[edit] Publications
Rudder has self-published a book on the counting (relationship) system of Australian Aborigines, has produced teaching materials for his courses in aboriginal speaking and thought, and is in the process of completing an Aboriginal–English dictionary.
Rudder's paintings have been exhibited in various competitions.
[edit] Art
Rudder has been an artist for many years, previously entering the Blake Prize for Religious Art. He recently returned to painting, and his entry was selected for display in the exhibition of the inaugural Phoenix Prize for spiritual art in 2005.
[edit] Beliefs and family
Rudder is a member of the Uniting Church in Australia.
He is married to Trixie, a part-time lay pastor for a congregation of the Uniting Church at Gunning, near Canberra.
John says that his relationships - what most white Australians would call friendships and family - are mostly with the Aboriginal people.
