Australia - Indigenous languages report

[T.Matthew Ciolek]

---------------- forwarded message -------------------
NEW PUBLICATION:
*********************************************************************
The Land Still Speaks:  Review of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Language 
Maintenance and Development Needs and Activities   (Commisssioned Report No 44, 
National Board of Employment, Education and Training)

by Graham McKay (Edith Cowan University, Perth Western Australia)

Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra  February 1996

*********************************************************************
Indigenous languages are the main languages of some relatively isolated communities in 
Australia, particularly in the north and the centre, but they have given way to English over 
much of the country, especially in the highly urbanised south and east.  The two hundred 
year history of non-indigenous settlement has brought about the loss of two thirds of the 
original 250 or so languages.  In recent decades indigenous people have been taking action 
in many parts of Australia to maintain and develop their languages as a part of their identity 
and heritage.  This report covers some of this action.

This report has two main components.  The first is a study of four different indigenous 
language communities where languages are being maintained and where language 
maintenance efforts are being undertaken.  These communities include Saibai Island in 
Torres Strait (Queensland) and Ringers Soak in the Kimberley region of Western Australia, 
where the indigenous languages are in continuing use, and Borroloola (Northern Territory) 
and Kempsey (NSW) where the indigenous languages have gone out of daily use, but 
where programs to retrieve and revive them in some form are being undertaken.

The second main component of the report is a survey--in some fifty brief descriptions--of 
some of the activities being undertaken in different communities all over Australia, involving 
dozens of languages, in programs classified as language maintenance, language revival and 
language awareness.

This is supplemented by descriptions of specific activities and situations in selected places 
and programs overseas (including programs in New Zealand, Canada, USA, Mexico, and 
Papua New Guinea) as well as a coverage of some of the literature on language 
maintenance.

A number of significant issues are discussed including what constitutes success in 
indigenous language maintenance, the relationship between land and language, the role of 
indigenous elders and the need for indigenous control of language programs, the role of 
training, the role of linguists, and the role of literacy and language teaching in language 
maintenance programs.

The report presents a number of principles and recommendations to government and 
non-government organisations.

A central thread in the report is that past attempts to eradicate indigenous languages appear to 
have been part of a sustained program of denying the existence of indigenous Australians in 
an attempt to take over their country.  Indigenous people are now asserting themselves, and 
their languages are one of the significant vehicles for this.  Language maintenance should be 
seen as but one component of an overall approach to acknowledging the existence of 
indigenous Australians and providing social justice for them.  Only the indigenous people 
themselves can maintain their languages in use and this requires them to take control of their 
own programs.  Language is not something which can be restricted to education programs, 
but rather it permeates the whole life of a people and actively involves all generations.


*********************************************************************The publication is available within Australia from Commonwealth Government bookshops 
for AU$16-95.

To order by mail, contact:

     Australian Government Publishing Service
     GPO Box 84
     Canberra  A.C.T.  2601
     Australia

     Tel. (06) 295 4411  (+61 6 295 4411), or from outside A.C.T.  008 020049
     Fax. (06) 295 4888   (+61 6 295 4888)

The cost quoted above includes surface mail in Australia. Overseas mail costs extra and 
depends on the Australia Post rates in force at the time

---------------- forwarded message -------------------