how western is it? geytenbeek automatically brings his english speaking/writing heritage into the translation. ngarla itself -- as a written form -- is westernised by using roman letters to form words to approximate the pronuncition of english.

a convention of bilingual texts in english speaking countries (or at least those ive seen from the uk, us, & australia) is to present the original language on the left page & the english on the right. this encourages a reading by an english reader from right to left. anyones reading practice might be different - but i usually read bilingual texts right side first, whether a line or whole poem, and then refer to the left. tho - especially if im interested in learning the language i might read the left first. or i might not read the left, if im tired, hurrying.

reading from right to left is more typically an eastern (arabic, asian) practice.