Shaun Davies (activist)

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Shaun Davies
Shopping Centre Signage, Redbank Plaza, Queensland.jpg
Davies in shopping centre signage at Redbank Queensland, 2021
NationalityAustralian
OccupationLinguist
Known forAdvocating for Yugambeh language and culture

Shaun Davies is an Aboriginal Australian language activist, linguist, radio personality, and actor. He is known for his advocacy work with the Yugambeh language and culture, as well as appearances in various media.

Early and personal life[]

Shaun is a member of the Yugambeh people, an Australian Aboriginal group whose traditional lands are located in South East Queensland and the Northern Rivers area of New South Wales.[1] Davies is the great-great grandson of Julia Ford née Sandy (c.1860-1896), an Aboriginal woman who has the sole tombstone in the Deebing Creek Aboriginal Cemetery;[2][3] Julia was from the Southport area of the Gold Coast and married Arthur Ford (c.1866-1954) at Nerang in 1883, Arthur was an Aboriginal man from the Murwillumbah region in northern New South Wales.[4]

Shaun grew up and has spent the majority of his life in Logan City, an area his family had lived in before the arrival of Europeans.[5] Davies completed a student exchange program in France where he discovered his passion for endangered languages, like Galician. Upon returning to Australia and informing his grandmother Joan and her sister, they implored him to learn their lingo.[6][7] Davies learnt his Yugambeh language from his maternal grandmother, who was from the Beaudesert area, while his maternal grandfather was from Tweed Heads.[8] Davies has recorded talk in conversations with the linguist Margaret Sharpe,[9] his grandmother grew up with Joe Culham,[10] who Sharpe (then Cunningham) had recorded language from in 1968.[11] As a child, he was taught Yugambeh dreamtime legends from his Elders, such as that of the janjarri (the Yugambeh Yowie), a spirit that guards the region from trespassers.[12][13]

Shaun speaking Yugambeh language

Career[]

Shaun is a linguist and the Language Research Officer at the Yugambeh Museum Language and Heritage Research Centre,[14] where he has been since 2015.[15] Describing social media as the new "campfire" and technology's central importance in keeping Indigenous languges alive for future generations, Davies has worked with Snapchat,[16] aided the development and expansion of the Yugambeh App,[17] and the creation of Google's 'Woolaroo' – an open-source photo-translation platform.[18][7]

He has written/translated songs for the Yugambeh Youth choir.[19][20] and provided Yugambeh interpretations for Ellen van Neerven's poetry.[21] Davies is an activist for Aboriginal language, and has advocated for the use of Indigenous place names over their contemporary English names, calling for Burleigh Heads and Mt Warning to be known by their Yugambeh names, Jellurgal and Wollumbin. This was opposed by Australian senator Pauline Hanson, while the Member for Burleigh, Michael Hart, was in favour so long as it was solely landmarks. Hanson subsequently featured the discussion on her Please Explain YouTube channel.[22] Shaun hosted Learn the Lingo on ABC Gold Coast - a radio show discussing Yugambeh language and other cultural subjects from 2015 to 2017,[8] and in 2019 appeared in the State Library of Queensland's Spoken exhibition discussing his personal history with the Yugambeh language.[23]

In 2020, Davies had a voice over role in the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Yugambeh language series Languages of our Land,[24] as well as appearing in Disney's Spread the Word.[25] Later that year, he appeared in the ABC documentary series Back to Nature where he guided the hosts through the Yugambeh language and stories associated with the Springbrook area.[14] Shaun is involved in protecting Yugambeh cultural heritage and land, being part of the consultation for the Gold Coast Light Rail construction's at Jebbribillum Bora Ring and a Cultural Heritage Coordinator,[26] he is also the treasurer of the Yugambeh Land Enterprise.[27] In late 2021, Davies was announced as an ambassador for the Proud City of Logan campaign, a local government initiative featuring six local champions, chosen to represent the diversity of people and lifestyles in the city.[28]

Filmography[]

Television series[]

Year Title Role Notes
2020 Spread the Word Himself Episode 2: Garu-galen [25]
Languages of our Land Voice Over 10 episodes [24]
2021 Back to Nature Himself Episode 1: The Green Cauldron [29][30]

See also[]

Citations[]

  1. ^ Manning 2021, pp. 20:43ff.
  2. ^ Riga & Murray 2019.
  3. ^ Moore 2019.
  4. ^ Anderson 2017, p. 64.
  5. ^ LCC 2021.
  6. ^ Logan City Council 2022.
  7. ^ a b Frostick 2022.
  8. ^ a b Webber & Davies 2019.
  9. ^ UNE 2017, pp. 2:35ff.
  10. ^ First Languages Australia 2018.
  11. ^ Cunningham 1968, p. 1.
  12. ^ Manning 2021, pp. 23:30ff.
  13. ^ Salleh 2021.
  14. ^ a b Kelly & Ringland 2021, pp. 4:10ff.
  15. ^ Logan City Council 2021.
  16. ^ Zaunmayr 2022.
  17. ^ Hinchcliffe 2015.
  18. ^ Google Arts & Culture 2021.
  19. ^ Gold Coast Sun 2017.
  20. ^ Kruger 2017, p. 57-60.
  21. ^ van Neerven 2018.
  22. ^ Nine News 2018.
  23. ^ State Library QLD 2019.
  24. ^ a b ABC Kids 2020.
  25. ^ a b Disney 2020.
  26. ^ Cansdale 2021.
  27. ^ Drescher 2021, pp. 17.
  28. ^ Logan City Council 2021b.
  29. ^ Manning 2021, pp. 20:00ff.
  30. ^ Mediaspy 2021.

References[]

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