[lg policy] Australia: Slip of the tongues: language and the unintended consequences of Indigenous policy

Sun Oct 7 16:10:07 UTC 2012

 Slip of the tongues: language and the unintended consequences of
Indigenous policy

Indigenous communities are devastated when languages are lost. This was the
conclusion of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander Affairs last month. The committee members also
found that Indigenous language plays a crucial role in people’s
relationships…
 Author

   1.  [image: Nicholas Biddle] Nicholas Biddle

   Fellow at Australian National University
    <http://theconversation.edu.au/profiles/10171>

Disclosure Statement

Nicholas Biddle receives funding from the Commonwealth Department of
FaHCSIA.

The Conversation provides independent analysis and commentary from
academics and researchers.

*We are funded by* CSIRO, Melbourne, Monash, RMIT, UTS, UWA, Canberra, CDU,
Deakin, Flinders, Griffith, La Trobe, Murdoch, QUT, Swinburne, UniSA, UTAS,
UWS and VU.
Articles by This Author 3 July 2012 Northern Territory Intervention
extended … but is it working?
<http://theconversation.edu.au/northern-territory-intervention-extended-but-is-it-working-8005>
2
July 2012 Australian census: not quite the US, but income gap widens
<http://theconversation.edu.au/australian-census-not-quite-the-us-but-income-gap-widens-7676>
21
June 2012 Australian Census: Indigenous Australia improves, but closing the
gap is a long way off
<http://theconversation.edu.au/australian-census-indigenous-australia-improves-but-closing-the-gap-is-a-long-way-off-7678>
[image:
T7p9prm9-1349157859] Government policy affects which languages flourish,
and which languages die out. iambents

Indigenous communities are devastated when languages are lost.

This was the conclusion of the House of Representatives Standing Committee
on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs last month. The committee
members also found that Indigenous language plays a crucial role in
people’s relationships with family, country, kin and culture.

This fits with analysis I recently
co-authored<http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00049182.2012.706201>showing
Indigenous Australians who were learning an Indigenous language
were significantly more likely to report that they were happy all or most
of the time in the previous four weeks compared to those who were not.
Who’s learning Indigenous languages?

Recent census data can tell us much about Indigenous language usage in
Australia. But as with much analysis of Indigenous outcomes, demographic
and population processes confuse the story on the maintenance of Indigenous
languages.

On the one hand, the analysis that I have carried out on census
data<http://caepr.anu.edu.au/population/indigenousoutcomes.php>showed
an increase in the number of Indigenous Australians who spoke an
Indigenous language at home from 51,990 counted in 2006 to 60,550 in 2011.
There were 16.5% more people in 2011 who identified as being Indigenous and
speaking an Indigenous language compared to 2006.

But on the other hand, as the number of people identified as being
Indigenous also increased, there was in fact a small decline in the
percentage of the relevant population speaking an Indigenous language —
from 12.1% to 11.6%.

Of those classified languages with at least 100 Indigenous speakers in
2006, the biggest increase was among those who reported that they spoke
“Aboriginal English”. There were 1,037 speakers in 2011 compared to 471 in
2006 — a 120% increase over the period.

There were, however, also a number of specific languages that increased
substantially over the period. This includes Nunggubuyu (114% increase),
Manyjilyjarra (107%), Kunwinjku (80%) and Ngarrindjeri (71%). Some of these
languages have been a focus of considerable government investment and,
although it is difficult to establish causality with data in the census, it
would appear that this investment may be paying dividends.
The geography of government policy

Not surprisingly, there was considerable variation in Indigenous language
usage across the country. More than half of all Indigenous language
speakers (34,086 people counted in the census) live in the Northern
Territory. This represents about 64.7% of the NT’s Indigenous population.
At the other end of the spectrum, 2% or less of the population in New South
Wales, Victoria, Tasmania and the ACT speak an Indigenous language at home.

Some of this geographical variation is due to specific historic government
policies. However, demography is also likely to be playing a large part. In
order for a language to be maintained and strengthened, it needs speakers.
These speakers ideally should be in relatively close proximity to one
another. While it is not possible to identify causal relationships with
cross-sectional data, the following figure shows a strong association
between the proportion of an area’s total population that identifies as
being Indigenous and the proportion of the Indigenous population who speak
an Indigenous language at home.
<https://c479107.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/files/16079/area14mp/kxgrnt9w-1349156831.jpg>Indigenous
language usage by Indigenous share of the Indigenous Area, 2011.
Nicholas
Biddle
Click to enlarge

The results presented in the above figure clearly demonstrate a
relationship between Indigenous language usage in an area and the
percentage of the population in that area that identify as being Indigenous.

There are some outliers. For example, in the areas of Cherbourg and Palm
Island (both in Queensland), more than 95% of the population identify as
being Indigenous, despite there being very few Indigenous language
speakers. This clearly reflects past government policy in these (and other)
areas with many Indigenous people being actively discouraged, and at times
prohibited, from speaking their own language. Nonetheless, there is
considerable overlap between language usage and the Indigenous share of the
area.
The language of loss

The map highlights a potential tension in current government policy. In
2006, the average Indigenous Australian lived in an area where 18.8% of the
total population identified as being Indigenous. By 2011, this had declined
to 16.4%.

Demographically, there is less of an opportunity for Indigenous Australians
to speak an Indigenous language with others in their area in 2011 compared
to 2006, and a greater incentive to speak English only.

Not all of this increasing Indigenous urbanisation is driven by government
policy. However, a focus on “closing the gap” in socioeconomic outcomes
between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, as well as an increasing
concentration of services in certain areas will probably encourage
Indigenous Australians to move from remote to less remote areas.

Put simply, demographic trends, potentially exacerbated by certain
government policies, are making it much more difficult for governments and
the Indigenous community to maintain Indigenous languages in Australia.

It is not surprising, therefore, that the first recommendation of the
standing committee’s report was that:

Commonwealth Government include in the Closing the Gap framework
acknowledgement of the fundamental role and importance of Indigenous
languages in preserving heritage and improving outcomes for Indigenous
peoples.

While this acknowledgement would be useful, it won’t solve the fundamental
dilemma at the heart of Indigenous policy in Australia – how to improve the
health, education and employment prospects of Indigenous Australians
without sacrificing the enduring differences in language and culture valued
by Indigenous Australians and the majority of the rest of the population.

http://theconversation.edu.au/slip-of-the-tongues-language-and-the-unintended-consequences-of-indigenous-policy-9937

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