David Nathan

Long bio: David Nathan is the director of the Endangered Languages Archive at the University of London’s Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Project. For nearly 20 years, he has worked with computing applications for endangered languages, especially Australian Aboriginal languages.

David did a BA Honours degree at La Trobe University and then an MA in Linguistics at the University of Sussex, UK. He then taught courses in Computing, Linguistics, and Cognitive Science at University of Melbourne and Sydney University. More recently, he completed a Diploma of Management.

He has developed software for language research, publication, and education; and his conventional publications include a high school textbook plus CD-ROM Australia’s Indigenous Languages, and a number of papers on lexicography, the internet, and multimedia. David has established and run web sites at the Australian Institute for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS), the WWW Virtual Library for Aboriginal Languages of Australia, the Federation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Languages, and was co-author (with Peter Austin) of the first fully hypertext bilingual dictionary on the web: the Gamilaraay/Kamilaroi dictionary.

He has produced multimedia CD-ROMs for a number of languages: Paakanytji (Broken Hill area, with Luise Hercus), Yolngu-Matha (northeast Arnhem Land, with Michael Christie), Warrungu (Queensland, with Tasaku Tsunoda), and Karaim (Lithuania, with Eva Csato). He is currently working with colleagues in Australia on a multimedia CD-ROM for Gamilaraay. David ran the Aboriginal Studies Electronic Data Archive at AIATSIS for four years (similar to the Oxford Text Archive, but focusing on Australian Aboriginal languages, all of which are endangered).

Currently, David is absorbed in the development of the Endangered Languages Archive, its close connections to issues in language documentation, language support and education, and linguistic research, and how these connections can be supported through innovative web technologies.