Waymamba Gaykamangu, a Chief Investigator for this project, has been teaching Yolngu languages and culture at Charles Darwin University since 1993. The Yolngu studies program was developed in full consultation with yolngu elders both women and men, both Dhuwa and Yirritja, from all the major yolngu communities. The yolngu elders made clear that, for students to learn properly about yolngu languages and culture, students would need to study a variety of languages, and learn about the histories of different places and people in the languages which belong to them. Waymamba can only speak for her own Gupapuyngu background, but she can, with permission, guide students through texts which have been produced in other languages by other people, and given to the university for study purposes. These representations - texts, audio files, movies and images - are already available for viewing in the online database on the yolngu studies website. Waymamba has been working on developing ideas for the TAMI electronic proof of concept and the specifications for the text-based search for the CDU/GCSI databases developing a user-friendly system for storing texts, audios, movies and images for students and researchers of yolngu Languages and Culture at Charles Darwin University. Download Friendly Search functional specification pdf

The project will continue into 2007 <download new specifications as of Dec 2006 as pdf>