The Language(s) of Love: JRB Love and Contesting Tongues at Ernabella Mission Station, 1940-46

Abstract

The author seeks to examine the role of missionaries - in particular that of the Reverend JRB Love - in 'negotiating' the relative place of the colonising language, English, and an Indigenous language, Pitjantjatjara, in the life of an Aboriginal mission station, Ernabella, in Central Australia in the early 1940s. Lest there be any confusion, Love was also a 'translator' in the narrower sense, being involved at the mission in the conversion of part of the biblical text to the Indigenous language. This is an instructive story in itself that this article can only touch on, but I am more interested here in examining his role in, and his rationale for, advocating and attempting to negotiate a bilingual language policy at the mission site against an opposing vernacular-only policy.