Emergence of a new visual language for castaway islanders (fwd link)

[phil cash cash]

Emergence of a new visual language for castaway islanders

Jo Chandler
September 20, 2008
Australia

THERE are just six old women, and one old man, left on the planet to speak
easily to one another in the language of their people, the Kaiadilt. They are
the last of their mob, the last born on Bentinck Island, a low-lying dot deep
in the Gulf of Carpentaria.

Their language and their culture were fatally wounded 60 years ago when high
tides forced the population of Bentinck to foreign territory — nearby
Mornington Island — and the strong grasp of the mission masters waiting there
thwarted their plans to return.

Such was their grief that no child was born for years, tearing a hole in the
sibling structure through which language is learned. When the babies did come
again, they would grow up on Mornington, their Kaiadilt tongue ebbing away in
the stretch of water separating them from their homeland.

Access full article below:
http://www.theage.com.au/national/emergence-of-a-new-visual-language-for-castaway-islanders-20080919-4k8n.html