Wilf Douglas
Wilfrid Henry Douglas ("Wilf") (4 July 1917 – 22 March 2004)
was a missionary, linguist and translator, and carried out
important early work on many indigenous Australian languages.
The son of Henry and Mina Douglas, he was born in Belfast in 1917.
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Belfast Telegraph" of Saturday, May 25, 1929.
Overseas League Spirit
Ulster Boy for Avustralia
Wilfred Douglas, aged 11, was the guest of honour at
an informal social meeting of the Overseas League on
Friday afternoon.
Wilfred is the adopted son or "godchild" of the
Ulster branch of the League, and his godparents are
sending him to the Fairbridge Farm School, Western
Australia, there to be trained to uphold the honour of
the British flag and to help develop the resources of
the Empire.
Wilfred sails for his new home on Monday.
Lady Katharine Hamilton, President of the League,
wrote regretting her inability to be present, but she
sent her godson a silver watch, which was presented to
him by the Rt. Hon. H.M.Pollock.
Sir Frederick and Lady Cleaver, Lady Byers, Mrs John
M'Conigal, Miss M'Connell, Mr Robert Baillie, Mrs John
M'Connell, Miss Corry, and the energetic Hon. Secretary,
Miss Cowan, were amongst those who attended the little
ceremony in the Club's headquarters at the Carlton.
|
Douglas came to Australia at the
age of 11, sailing for Australia with 30 other boys destined for Fairbridge Farm School at Pinjarra, Western Australia. After two
years at Fairbridge he went to Perth to work on a poultry farm,
then ticket writing until 1937 when he entered Perth Bible
Institute.
In 1938 at the age of 21 he went to the siding
of Badjaling in the Western Australian wheatbelt as a school
teacher for the United Aborigines Mission (UAM) and in those
early days started to take an interest in the language of the
Noongar people who lived at Badjaling.
After a period in
the Australian Army from 1941–45, working at Hollywood Military
Hospital, Karrakatta Military Camp and Rottnest, he went to
Gnowangerup Mission then in 1945 married Elizabeth Weir. The
following year after the birth of their son, John, they went to
the Kimberley, and it was at Sunday Island that Wilf attempted
to translate verses from the Bible into the Bardi language. This
struggling attempt, initially with John 3:16, led to a long
association with the Wycliffe Bible Translators through their
annual Summer Institute of Linguistics and a lifetime of Bible
translation and detailed study of Aboriginal languages.
After he undertook some linguistic studies at Sydney University,
an opportunity arose in 1951 for the Douglas family to go to
Ooldea on the Transline in South Australia to do language work
with the UAM. Here he worked for the first time with speakers of
the Western Desert Language and produced a phonology and
grammar. A year later they moved to Warburton Ranges and during
this time their second son Robert was born. It was here that he
produced his works Introduction to the Western Desert Language
(pub. Sydney Uni 1957) and his Illustrated Topical Dictionary of
the Western Desert Language (1959). Wilf’s concern for the
establishment of an indigenous Church with a Bible in its own
language became a central factor in his work, leading to the
establishment in 1955 of the Western Desert Bible School and
Translation Centre at Mt Margaret.
In 1957 the family
moved to Kalgoorlie and the following year Wilf established the
UAM Language Department which he headed up for another 24 years,
until the establishment of the Aboriginal-run Ngaanyatjarra
Bible Project. The Language Department provided oversight of
Bible translators in the Western Desert and Kimberley regions of
Western Australia and led to opportunities for many hundreds of
people in these regions to read and understand the Bible in
their own language.
Douglas continued his work with the
Noongar language and in 1968 he published his The Aboriginal
Languages of the South-West of Australia (AIAS press).
He
also carried out work in the Geraldton region on Wajarri (which
he spelled 'Watjarri').
In 2002, the Bible Society in
Australia presented him with the Elizabeth Macquarrie Award for
his contribution to Bible translation.
Douglas continued
his work throughout his life, continuing work on a new edition
of his Illustrated Dictionary of the South West Language until
just before his death.
His son Rob Douglas writes: Decades before Mabo and the word “Land
Rights” had become commonplace in Australia, Wilf Douglas was asked for
help in identifying sacred sites between Laverton and the WA-NT border.
The Irish-born missionary, linguist and Bible translator replied in
characteristic fashion with the words: “Every square inch of land in
that area is sacred”.
It was such high respect for the Aboriginal
people, their culture and their language that set Mr Douglas apart and
was a feature of more than 60 years tireless work, learning and
understanding Aboriginal languages, and the people who spoke them. Years
spent sitting on the ground in dusty Aboriginal reserves and camps
around Australia resulted in significant technical studies being
produced of languages as varied as the Western Desert languages of
Central Australia, the Nyoongah language of the South West of WA and the
Watjarri language of the Murchison region of WA. Although he never went
to high school, Mr Douglas lectured in universities and mentored PhD
students. Beyond technical studies he felt a deep and lasting duty to
share the Christian Gospel wi=top>
After his first attempts at
learning Nyoongah at the West Australian wheatbelt siding of Badjaling
at the age of 21 and a stint in the army, Mr Douglas, his wife Beth and
baby son John, found themselves in the Kimberley with the United
Aborigines Mission and it was while they were working on Sunday Island
at the mouth of the King Sound that he succeeded in his first stumbling
attempts at translating the Bible into Bardi. This interest in
linguistics attracted opposition from some who believed that such an
emphasis on Aboriginal languages would “take the people back to
heathenism”, but Mr Douglas persisted at linguistic courses conducted by
the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) and Sydney University to
expand his new found linguistic skills.
The mission asked the
Douglas family in 1951 to work at their mission station at Ooldea, a
railway siding between Port Augusta and Cook on the Transline in South
Australia. Here he made his first serious breakthrough in understanding
what he described as the Western Desert language, eventually producing a
grammar and phonology for what had previously been an unwritten
language.
From the sandhills of Ooldea, came a move to Warburton
Ranges in the central desert, where major works were achieved including
an Introduction to the Western Desert Language (pub. Sydney Univ. 1957)
and an Illustrated Topical Dictionary of the Western Desert Language,
(1959).
Wilf was a regular tutor, and for some years Principal,
of SIL training courses in Melbourne and later Brisbane. In 1966 he
attended Wycliffe Bible Translators’ Course in Mexico which enriched his
own skills and enabled him to check with translations into Central and
South American languages.
Only a fortnight before his death, the
second edition of the Illustrated Dictionary of the South West Language
was published by a valued colleague, Dr Toby Metcalfe. In 2001, Mr
Douglas had been presented the Bible Society’s Elizabeth Macquarie Award
for his lifelong services to translation. It reads in part: “Many
Aboriginal Bible translations owe their existence to his dedicated
enthusiasm and many Bible translators owe their skills to his faithful
teaching.”
 |
| Woodrow Craig Douglas |
Note:
• Wilfred's brother, Woodrow Craig Douglas was killed
at sea when his submarine, HMS Tigris, was sunk off the coast of Italy
in 1943. He had recently married.
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