Australia: Women on front line of language preservation

[Harold Schiffman]

 Forwarded  From: edling at lists.sis.utsa.edu


The Australian



Women on front line of language preservation



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.



Full story:

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




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 Harold F. Schiffman

Professor Emeritus of
 Dravidian Linguistics and Culture
Dept. of South Asia Studies
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305

Phone:  (215) 898-7475
Fax:  (215) 573-2138

Email:  haroldfs at gmail.com
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/

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