Natural and Cultural Heritage Theme Report
Australia State of the Environment Report 2001 (Theme Report)
Lead Author: Jane Lennon, Jane Lennon and Associates Pty Ltd, Authors
Published by CSIRO on behalf of the Department of the Environment and Heritage, 2001
ISBN 0 643 06752 3
State of Indigenous languages related to cultural heritage (continued)
Indigenous language programs in schools and education institutions
Language programs operate at various levels. There are projects aimed primarily at recording Indigenous languages and traditional knowledge in Indigenous languages. This sort of work is often the result of funding from AIATSIS and the ARC. In practice such documentation work may be, and many would argue should be, closely tied to training and language maintenance activities for local Indigenous communities through language centres and schools. However, documentation research, education and materials or media production usually have quite distinct funding sources. Similarly, Regional Language Centres and schools are quite distinct in funding and control, but under favourable circumstances work closely together at a local and regional level on Indigenous languages programs.
School lesson in an Indigenous language being held at the Halls Creek District High School in the Kimberley region, WA.
Source: Volodymyr Malanczak (2001)
ATSIC Annual reports give the number of projects resulting from ATSILIP funds. This has ranged from a high of 90 in 1995-96 to less than that ever since. Overall estimates for number of language programs by State and Territory are given in Table 41.
| State or Territory | Number of programs |
|---|---|
| NSW and ACT | 26 |
| NT | 65 |
| Qld | 25 |
| SA | 71 |
| Tas. | 1 |
| Vic. | 4 |
| WA | 64 |
The ATSIC Needs Survey would provide detailed information about programs for Indigenous languages as it is the only national study to evaluate the programs operating at a local level, but it is unavailable. The Maningrida response to the Needs Survey outlines the activities conducted in the mid-1990s (see Maningrida language activities).
Maningrida language activities
- Literature production in local languages.
- Extensive comparative databases of plant and animal names for a wide range of Top End languages, especially Ndjbbana, Kunbarlang, Kuninjku, Rembarrnga, Burarra, Gun-nartpa, Maung, Djinang, Wurlaki.
- Batchelor College runs annual Aboriginal Languages Fortnights (mainly) for students from Batchelor College. Workshop activities include bookmaking, posters with pictures and short texts, and flashcards. Further activities focus on spelling systems and dictionary construction.
- Translations and interpretation of art and craft documentations for artwork by speakers of many different languages. This is carried out by Maningrida Arts and Culture.
- Music recordings and transcription (non-professional). Maningrida Arts and Culture has made recordings of a number of local traditional song styles such as Bongolinbongolin, Wurrurrumi and sections of the Marayarr Murrukundja ceremony. These tapes are made available for sale through the Arts and Culture Centre and have proven extremely popular.
- Professional music recordings. Local Maningrida bands such as Sunrize and Letterstick have recorded CDs and tapes which are marketed nationally and internationally. Many songs are recorded in local languages.
- Land and Learning: Funded under the Commonwealth Government's Disadvantaged Schools Program, the Land and Learning project involved the documentation of flora and fauna, including the collection of plant and animal names in a number of local languages.
- Dictionaries of Burarra, Djinang.
- Weaving process documentation and lexicography project. This on-going project has a strong linguistic bent and is documenting Burarra names for weaving materials, plants used, the names of woven items and the words that people use to talk about the processes and styles involved in producing weavings.
- Djinang dictionary desktop-published by Bruce Waters.
- Grammar of Djinang and Djinba published by Bruce Waters.
- Language workshop in 1994 at Gamerdi outstation school (Homeland Centre teacher and NT Education Department linguist Carolyn Coleman). Wordlists and three texts were produced.
- Support for independent schools' language programs: e.g. Gochan Jiny-jirra independent school.
- Support for University linguistics students and researchers working on Gun-nartpa, Gurrgoni, Kunbarlang, Kuninjku, Kunwinjku, Kune, Gun-djeihmi, Mayali, Dalabon, Dangbon, Kundedjnjenghmi, Rembarrnga and Nakkra.
- Eastern Kuninjku rock art sites recording including recording and translation of oral culture related to rock art sites and extensive recording, transcription and translation of Eastern Kunwinjku texts.
- Talking Ndjbbana books on Hypercard.
- Recording of some Ndjbbana place names in the Maningrida region was carried out in 1996 and was used for the new displays in Maningrida's recently renovated Djmi Museum. The Ndjbbana-English bilingual education program is run by the Maningrida Community Education Centre.
Source: McConvell and Thieberger (2001).
Regional Aboriginal Language Centres began to be set up mainly in Western Australia and the Northern Territory in the 1980s as Indigenous-controlled bodies. They were charged with assisting in the running of local community language programs in their regions, including language documentation, education and training, materials and multimedia production, and interpreting/translation. They have been funded mainly through ATSIC programs but also receive other grants and portions of mining royalties in some cases. Generally they have continued to deliver language services successfully through the 1990s in areas where they have been established.
In other States, regional language centres were not established, or established only patchily, and were based on different models; for example, covering a whole State like Yaitya Warra Wadli in South Australia or catering for a single community or small area as in parts of New South Wales and Queensland. In some quarters, other bodies such as 'language committees' came into being as channels for ATSIC funding. The national peak body, FATSIL, also did not adopt the structure of a federation of language centres, but an association of individual Indigenous people.
The activities of the Kimberley Language Resource Centre, which was established in 1985 (drawn from their 2000 Newsletter), give some insight into the range of programs undertaken: publication of a dictionary, CD-ROM, phrase book, word books, life stories, and high school language lessons and art workshop.
Table 42 gives figures for Indigenous language programs run outside schools, for each State and Territory.
| NSW & ACT | NT | Qld | SA | Tas. | Vic. | WA | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LanguagesA | (?)8 | (15)E | (?)19 | 6 | (?)1 | (?)3 | (14)F |
| ProgramsB | 8 | (15)E | 19 | 6 | 1 | 3 | (14)F |
| SitesC | 8 | (18)E | 18 | 15 | 1 | 6 | (7)F |
| CentresD | 6 | 4 | 7 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 6 |
A Languages: the number of languages for which non-education Indigenous language programs exist (excluding post-school education programs - TAFE and University courses).
B Programs: a program is a named set of activities which are run together in a coordinated manner by the same managing group for the same target or client group. The number would normally be the same as the number of languages where there is a single program for each language group. However there can be variation where a program takes in more than one language in a region, or two distinct programs are run for one language. There may be distinct projects within one program; for example, in the Kimberley Language Resource Centre study above, the Bunuba CD-ROM, the Bunuba Art Workshop, and the Bunuba Language Nest are distinct projects with a Bunuba program.
C Sites: the number of sites (locations) at which non-education programs operate. A single language program for instance may be run at a main centre and in an annex or outstation, for instance. As long as activities are carried out in more than one place regularly, these count as multi-site programs.
D Centres: the number of language centres in the state, according to FATSIL (1999).
E Information from only 3 language centres: probably around 25 languages/programs in total.
F Information from only 4 language centres: probably around 20 languages/programs in total.
Source: McConvell and Thieberger (2001).
In the Northern Territory some 20 languages have been used in bilingual school programs, although it appears there is an effort on the part of the Territory government to reduce the level of commitment to Indigenous language education. There are also Indigenous language programs in South Australia (in government schools) and in Western Australia (non-government schools). Table 43 reports the number of Indigenous Language education programs around Australia.
| State or Territory | School | Post-school |
|---|---|---|
| NSW and ACT | 13 | 5 |
| Northern Territory | 37 | 3 |
| Queensland | 5 | 1(?)A |
| South Australia | 62 | 3 |
| Tasmania | 0 | 0 |
| Victoria | 1 | 0 |
| Western Australia | 40+ | 4(?) |
A James Cook University course seems to be discontinued.
Source: McConvell and Thieberger (2001).
Kimberley Language Resource Centre
Bonnie Deegan, chairperson of the Kimberley Language Resource Centre, wrote:
'The year I turned five years old I was taken away from my mother, a full-blood Aboriginal woman and my father, a white man...by Native Welfare. I spoke in language (Jaru) and Kriol...Nobody ever spoke their language in school. That's how I lost my language. It was one of my dreams to learn to speak my language again...I love the Language Centre. I am proud to have been the chairperson for this many years. I am happy to see lots of dictionaries and books produced by the language centre in different languages. The idea of the language centre is to preserve and revive all languages. We are proud to help all surrounding communities with language projects...Old people should be talking to the young ones in Language all the time. We shouldn't be ashamed but be proud to speak our Language.'
Kimberley Language Resource Centre, WA.
Source: Cas Pearson/Kimberley Language Resource Centre (2001)
Services provided by the Kimberley Language Resource Centre WA.
Source: Cas Pearson/Kimberley Language Resource Centre (2001)
Language and ecological knowledge - Wet Tropics World Heritage property
The huge biological diversity found in the North Queensland rainforests is reflected in the detailed vocabulary of the languages of the region, but these languages are at least as severely endangered as the biological species in the region. The young people know only a few of the names of species in the traditional language, and they do not compensate for that with English names. Dyirbal young people use only one term for 'eel' (jaban) in contrast to the several names for different species known by the handful of remaining full speakers. Even grammatical categories embody ecological knowledge: the feminine gender in traditional Dyirbal includes dangerous species as well as females. Young people use the feminine only to refer to females, thus losing a way of classifying species behaviour which is inherent in the way the language was organised (Schmidt 1985, cited in Nettle and Romaine 2000, pp.66-68).
If this linguistic knowledge could be passed on to the younger generation it would also enable them to be more sensitive to biodiversity and conservation in their own country, where they live, and to continue their traditional role as caretakers of the land and sea in the most effective way. This knowledge and linguistic expertise could realise its potential if combined with greater involvement of these Indigenous people in major conservation projects in the region, such as the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area, which includes the traditional country of the Dyirbal and their neighbours. Some elders of the region are making determined efforts to do this by mentoring young people. The training not only involves learning the names of species and places, but how to use the traditional language to perform ritual obligations while guiding people through the rainforest, such as addressing invocations to the ancestors to ensure the safety of the visitors.
Source: McConvell and Thieberger (2001).
Language, education and transmission of traditional knowledge all combine to be essential in protecting the outstanding values of significant places in Australia as the example in the Language and ecological knowledge box above illustrates.
Conclusion and implications regarding Indigenous languages and cultural heritage
- The number of Indigenous languages and the percentage of people speaking these languages has continued to fall in the period 1986-1996, accelerating over the 10 years. If these trends continue unchecked, by 2050 there will no longer be any Indigenous languages spoken in Australia. It is unlikely that this prediction will be borne out in exactly this way, since the trend will probably level out eventually, leaving a handful of strong languages still spoken for another generation or two, but the overall scenario is nevertheless bleak. Language revival has had an appreciable affect on increasing the number of people identifying as speakers of an Indigenous language in at least one region.
- Undercounting of Indigenous people in the 1996 Census, together with an 8% greater number of respondents saying they know an Indigenous language than saying they speak it at home, suggests that there may actually be in the order of 55 000 speakers of Indigenous languages in Australia.
- By 1996, seventeen of the previous twenty strong languages were still strong and three had become endangered.
- The decline in numbers of speakers of Indigenous languages is also spread across the urban-rural divide.
- In some regions there is a decrease in speaker numbers in the 30-39 age group, but more people under 30 are now identifying as speakers, possibly heralding a revitalisation of the language. At the same time as there has been a large increase in the number of people identifying as Indigenous in the 1986-1996 period, there has also been an increase in the absolute numbers of Indigenous language speakers, but not proportional to the increase in total Indigenous population. There is a trend in most Indigenous languages for knowledge of language to be inversely proportional to age, i.e. the younger people are, the less likely they are to speak an Indigenous language. This is considered to be a symptom of language shift, and of the language being endangered.
- There has been an increase in the amount of recording and documentation of Indigenous languages in the past 10 years, and 141 of the 764 named Indigenous languages have wordlists or dictionaries.
- Much of the increased activity in recording and documentation followed the establishment of Commonwealth funding programs specifically supporting Indigenous languages. Particularly significant and productive has been the establishment of Regional Aboriginal Language Centres and language management committees under Indigenous control from the mid-1980s onwards; there are few parallels to this development elsewhere in the world.
- There have been significant initiatives developing curriculum and programs related to Indigenous languages in the last ten years for primary and high schools. Major new networks of Indigenous language programs have been set up in South Australia and Western Australia, although the reversion from Bilingual to English-only education in the Anangu lands in South Australia in the 1980s must be weighed on the other side of the balance. There is some evidence of a tailing off of support for Indigenous languages in other parts of Australia in the late 1990s. Particularly detrimental has been the dismantling of the Bilingual Education programs in Aboriginal schools in the Northern Territory, where Indigenous people make up 29% of the population. The establishment of this program in 1974 was the single most important move in support of Indigenous languages that has ever occurred in Australia and its loss is a severe blow.
- Overall the trend is still a decline, and if this decline is not halted or reversed there will be an eventual loss of perhaps all Indigenous languages, a tragic result for Indigenous people and the heritage of Australia. However there are some bright spots, where the efforts of Indigenous people to turn the situation around seem to be paying off in mitigating the downward trend. The building of strong Indigenous-controlled language centres and programs, backed by Commonwealth funding schemes and, more recently, strong support for Indigenous languages in education in some States are assisting in this rescue operation. But this support remains uncertain, and in some places (notably the Northern Territory) is faltering. Schemes and programs must be continued for a generation to have effect.