Women on front line of language preservation (fwd link)

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Women on front line of language preservation

Gail Liston | April 08, 2009
Article from:  The Australian

SPURRED on by the critical need to halt the loss of endemic indigenous languages
across Australia, academics at the Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary
Education in the Northern Territory are finding themselves involved in a
front-line offensive.

Of the 250 traditional languages once spoken on this continent as recently as
100 years ago, there are now only 20 to 30 considered healthy, viable and
likely to survive, according to Jeanie Bell, lecturer at the institute's Centre
for Australian Languages and Linguistics.

She acknowledges that increased support for documenting language will come from
the women and younger people in the communities; however, it is not always easy
to maintain their interest.

Bell says the institute is training indigenous people to work on their own
languages and help others in the communities keep them alive. "This is
groundbreaking work but it takes time and commitment," she adds.

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http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25305162-12332,00.html