Australian TV show teaches Aboriginal language (fwd link)

[Phillip E Cash Cash]

Australian TV show teaches Aboriginal language

(AFP) – 13 hours ago
via Google

SYDNEY — An Australian TV channel is broadcasting the first lessons in an
Aboriginal language aimed at young children, in a bid to stem an alarming
decline that has wiped out hundreds of native dialects.

"Waabiny Time", for three to six-year-olds, teaches "yes", "no" and other
basic terms in the Noongar language, which is spoken in the southwestern
region around Perth.

The show, broadcast daily and repeated on Saturdays, started last month with
13 half-hour episodes and proved so popular the entire series is now being
screened again.

"I realised while working with Aboriginal communities that kids weren't
talking with their grandparents in their language," producer Cath Trimboli,
told AFP.

"It is disappearing, kids are not encouraged to talk in this language. So I
wanted to work on this."

Noongar is one of about 60 indigenous languages still spoken in Australia,
compared with about 250 -- and up to 700 dialects -- in circulation at the
time of white settlement in 1788. Of 13 Noongar dialects, just five now
remain.

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