Dying Aboriginal language given new voice (fwd)

[phil cash cash]

Dying Aboriginal language given new voice

Stuart Rintoul
10oct06
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20554015-5006785,00.html

ONLY about 60 people in the world speak the Bunuba language fluently.

Yet Bunuba, one of the highly endangered Aboriginal languages of the
Kimberley region of Western Australia, is the tongue students at Wesley
College in Melbourne will study for the next month in the latest move by
an elite school to bridge the divide between Aboriginal and
non-Aboriginal Australians.

Two Aboriginal linguists, June Oscar and Patsy Bedford, arrived at
Wesley yesterday to begin the program, in which all 120 Year4 students
across Wesley's three campuses will study Bunuba "land, language and
culture".

They will learn expressions such as Jalangurru ma? (Are you well?)

It is the first time Bunuba has been taught in a non-indigenous school
and it is only recently that the Bunuba people have written down their
stories.

The Bunuba unit of study has been included in the school's International
Baccalaureate primary years program to encourage children to embrace
qualities including open-mindedness.

Connections between Wesley and the Bunuba have been growing for the past
two years, since Wesley's principal, Helen Drennen, decided the school
needed to improve its focus on indigenous Australia. Last year, a dozen
Year11 students attended a cultural festival in the Kimberley. Kim
Anderson, senior associate to the Wesley College Institute, said the
effect was profound.

"It had a huge impact on our students," she said. "The way that they
spoke in assemblies, the way that they spoke to adults, the things they
wrote, from the heart, about issues to do with indigenous Australia and
what we need to start to consider."

Strong consideration has gone into how the Bunuba can benefit. Over the
past 30 years, only a handful of Bunuba children have completed Year
12. A steep attrition rate begins at Year 7. Wesley staff have been
sent to the Kimberley to design curriculums.

Wesley offered scholarships to Bunuba students, but the community
baulked at sending children into so distant and challenging an
environment.

Ms Oscar, partner of indigenous leader Pat Dodson, said the Wesley
program offered greater opportunities for both communities, while Ms
Bedford said she hoped to teach Wesley's students about the connection
of Aborigines to the land "and the value of who we are".