Wilfrid Henry Douglas: 1917-2004 (2004)

From child immigrant to university guest lecturer without ever attending high school! Wilf had several talents that produced this amazing achievement. Firstly, he had an outgoing Irish personality that was never lost for words. Secondly, he had an outstanding gift for mimicry and ability to learn languages. Thirdly, he had a keen analytical mind and interest in many theoretical issues, including those relating to language structures. He also had considerable artistic talent which he was able to use in many different ways. Wilf wrote detailed grammatical descriptions of three Western Australian languages (Ngaanyatjarra, Noongar and Watjarri). He was a tireless advocate for the use of Aboriginal languages in education and missionary work and wrote many papers which were published in various journals and compilations. His artistic skills were widely used in illustrating biblical booklets in Aboriginal languages. Wilf Douglas was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on 4 July 1917. At the age of 11, he sailed for Australia in May 1929 with 30 other boys destined for the Fairbridge Farm School at Pinjarra, Western Australia. After four years at Fairbridge, he went to Perth to work on a poultry farm, then as a ticket-writer. He studied at the Perth Bible Institute during 1937 and 1938. After completing the Bible course, he went to Badjaling near Quairading in the West Australian wheat belt to help the two mission teachers at the United Aborigines Mission (UAM) in the days before Aboriginal children were allowed to attend government schools. It was there that he first started to take an interest in the language of the Aboriginal people who lived around the mission. However, his missionary career was interrupted by World War II, and he served in the Australian Army from 1941 till 1945, being stationed at the Hollywood Military Hospital, Karrakatta Military Camp and Rottnest Island. After being discharged from the Army he went to the Gnowangerup Mission, and that same year married Elizabeth Weir. The following year Wilf spent in Perth as he took the opportunity to do a course in Commercial Art provided by the Department of Repatriation. Later that year the mission transferred them (with their baby son) to the Kimberley region, and by early 1947 they were working at the mission on Sunday Island in outer King Sound. Wilf struggled to learn some of the Bardi language and made his first attempt to translate a verse from the Bible into an Aboriginal language. Some fellow missionaries, knowing of his interest in language, helped the family to go to Melbourne to attend the first summer school of the Summer Institute of Linguistics to be held in Australia during the first three months of 1950. Wilf then had the opportunity to do a linguistic course at the University of Sydney under the tutelage of Dr Arthur Capell while also looking after the UAM mission station at La Perouse. Wilf and Beth returned to Melbourne for the 1951 course of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, this time as a tutor. He continued to do this almost every year for approximately 15 years, serving for a number of years as the vice-principal, the fourth of the school. As soon as the 1951 course was over, the UAM sent the Douglas family to Ooldea on the Trans-Australian Railway line in South Australia. Wilf made an enthusiastic study of the language and in 1955 published his first linguistic paper, 'Phonology of the Australian Aboriginal language spoken at Ooldea, South Australia, 1951-1952', in Oceania XXV(3). After the closure of the mission at Ooldea, the Douglas family were transferred to the Warburton Ranges Mission in 1953 and Wilf studied the language there which was closely related to that spoken at Ooldea. By 1957 he had prepared the volume An introduction to the Western Desert language (Oceania Linguistic Monographs 4). For many years this was the most comprehensive monograph available for any Australian language. …