John Rudder, PhD, has studied the Australian Aboriginal languages, of Arnhem Land (Gupapuyngu) in the Northern Territory and the state of New South Wales (Wiradjuri), Australia. Work In 1964, Rudder went to Arnhem Land as a teacher, and later as a community development worker and educator among adult Indigenous Australians. In that time he learned to speak the language of the region, and analysed its grammar and syntax. He sought to gain formal educational qualifications after moving to Canberra, and has since gained a master's degree in Anthropology focussing on Aboriginal Classificatory Theory and Cognitive Structures and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Aboriginal Anthropology focusing on Yolngu Cosmology (focusing on beliefs regarding the nature of existence and how the world is ordered.) Language teaching From 1993 to 2010, Rudder was heavily involved with Stan Grant Sr, an elder of the Wiradjuri people, in reclaiming the Wiradjuri language that was at that time effectively dead. He took anthropological studies and records amounting to the records of fewer than 2,000 words and applied the language and cognitive analysis he had previously applied to the Yolngu language, to begin to reconstruct the Wiradjuri language. With Grant, who provided a sense of the language remembered from his youth in World War II among Wiradjuri-speaking family and tribal members, notably his grandfather, they have established training sessions to teach the language across Wiradjuri country. Intensive weekend camps, workshops, and other sessions have seen a growing number of Wiradjuri speakers who are beginning to re-establish the language. For instance, these speakers are beginning to write songs and poems that are then being taught to children. Secondary effects of the cultural use of the Wiradjuri language are being felt within the language group, and beyond. Examples are: recognition of the Wiradjuri as a cultural group within the wider society use of Wiradjuri words in communities, and in Australian usage teaching of Wiradjuri to New South Wales Primary School children Art Rudder has been an artist for many years, previously entering the Blake Prize for Religious Art. He recently returned to painting, and his entry was selected for display in the exhibition of the inaugural Phoenix Prize for spiritual art in 2005. Personal life Rudder has been a member of the Uniting Church in Australia. Until her death in 2008 he was married to Trixie, a part-time lay pastor for a congregation of the Uniting Church at