<span style="font-family: georgia,serif;">Health talk in language they can understand</span><br style="font-family: georgia,serif;"><br style="font-family: georgia,serif;"><span style="font-family: georgia,serif;">September 10, 2010</span><br style="font-family: georgia,serif;">
<span style="font-family: georgia,serif;">Australia </span><br style="font-family: georgia,serif;"><br style="font-family: georgia,serif;"><span style="font-family: georgia,serif;">A dictionary in Yolngu will counter fear and ignorance, writes Lindsay Murdoch.</span><br style="font-family: georgia,serif;">
<br style="font-family: georgia,serif;"><span style="font-family: georgia,serif;">When some Yolngu Aborigines living in north-east Arnhem Land were asked last year about their understanding of a heart attack, they replied that it was an alien disease where an agent or foreign body attacks someone's heart.</span><br style="font-family: georgia,serif;">
<br style="font-family: georgia,serif;"><span style="font-family: georgia,serif;">A stroke, they told researchers, was also a term unknown in their vocabulary: they thought it meant soothing a sick person.</span><br style="font-family: georgia,serif;">
<br style="font-family: georgia,serif;"><span style="font-family: georgia,serif;">For decades Western doctors and health workers have struggled to communicate with indigenous people from remote communities for whom English is their second, third or even fourth language.</span><br style="font-family: georgia,serif;">
<br style="font-family: georgia,serif;"><span style="font-family: georgia,serif;">Access full article below:</span><br style="font-family: georgia,serif;"><span style="font-family: georgia,serif;"><a href="http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/wellbeing/health-talk-in-language-they-can-understand-20100909-153bl.html">http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/wellbeing/health-talk-in-language-they-can-understand-20100909-153bl.html</a></span><br style="font-family: georgia,serif;">