1301.0 - Year Book Australia, 2009–10
ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 04/06/2010
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This page was updated on 23 Nov 2012 to include the disclaimer below. No other content in this article was affected. Most of the other language families are found in the top end of the Northern Territory and the Kimberley. These languages are grouped together as non-Pama-Nyungan languages by some linguists, as shown in map 2. Meriam Mir is grouped together with Papuan languages from New Guinea. 1. INDIGENOUS LANGUAGES THAT HAVE A WORD WHICH ORIGINATES IN THE FORM, 'KAMI' Creoles: Kriol and Yumplatok In addition to traditional Indigenous languages, creoles are also spoken by Indigenous people of northern Australia. A creole is a language that develops from language contact, in the case of Australia, English and Australian Indigenous languages, and shows features of contact languages. Two creole languages spoken by Indigenous Australians have appeared since colonisation. 'Kriol' is spoken in a belt across Northern Australia from the Kimberley through the Katherine region. 'Yumplatok', also called 'Torres Strait Creole' or 'Brokan', is spoken in the Torres Strait and some communities of Cape York Peninsula. These two creoles are spoken as the first language of many Indigenous Australians in northern Australia and are the most commonly spoken languages other than English, by Indigenous people. The 2006 census reported 5,769 and 3,869 speakers of Yumplatok and Kriol respectively. Linguists working on Kriol, however, estimate as many as 20,000 to 30,000 Indigenous Australians speak Kriol as their first-language. It is considered so widely spoken as a first language, that in 2007, the Bible was published in Kriol, as the Holi Baibul. This is the first complete translation of the Bible (both the Old and New Testaments) into an Australian Indigenous language (although a non-traditional Indigenous language). Although most Kriol words come from English, meanings can differ greatly and the way sentences are made is very different. For example, the English word 'we' does not indicate if the listener is included. Most Aboriginal languages distinguish between 'we' meaning 'me and you, the listener' and 'we' meaning 'me and someone else, not you the listener'. Kriol makes this distinction too - the first 'we' is yunmi, the second 'we' is mindubala or melabat. (End note 5). INDIGENOUS LANGUAGE STUDY Early work At the time of colonisation, none of the Indigenous languages of Australia had a writing system. Stories and knowledge were handed down orally. Australian Indigenous language study has a relatively short history - it did not start until some colonists began documenting languages. In the early days of Indigenous language study, non-Indigenous people conducted most of the work. Not all early documenters of languages were trained researchers. Colonial officers, missionaries and squatters were among the early documenters of Indigenous languages. Edward Micklethwaite Curr, a sheep farmer from Victoria, circulated a list of 125 English words among policemen, magistrates, and squatters across Australia, and asked them to provide Indigenous equivalents. The result was a four-volume work, The Australian Race (1886) that contains 300 vocabularies of Indigenous languages. Naturally, when documentation was conducted by untrained researchers, the quality of documentation varied. There was no standard writing system for Indigenous languages, and each person was writing Indigenous languages in a different way, reflecting the documenter's language background, such as English or German. Thus, the same word may be spelled in a different way. For example, the word bagaranj 'heat, day, light, sun' of the Dhurga language from the South coast of New South Wales has been documented as bug'garań by Mathews a surveyor; Bug.green by Larmer, another surveyor; and bŭgŭrin by Hale, an anthropologist/linguist. Such inconsistencies make it difficult for the current generation of Indigenous people or researchers to work out how the word used to be pronounced, if no sound recording of the word was made. Many Indigenous languages ceased to be spoken before they were properly documented. In the earliest colonised parts of Australia, there are some languages for which there is very little documentation. For example, according to Wafer and Lissarrague 2008, there are only a few hundred known words recorded in the Ngunawal and Ngarigu languages spoken around the Canberra region. Past documentation of languages now supports language revitalisation and reclamation efforts by communities. This is especially important when a language has not been spoken for several generations. Recent work The first university Department of Linguistics was founded in 1965 at Monash University in Australia and since then many linguists have graduated from Australian universities. Some of these linguists have been documenting and studying Australian Indigenous languages. In 1974, the School of Australian Linguistics was founded within the Darwin Community College. This School aimed to train Indigenous people so that they can document and study their own languages as well as produce teaching and language resources. The School was absorbed into the Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education (then Batchelor College) in 1989, and today the Batchelor Institute still offers training on language work. Linguists produced a number of grammars and dictionaries of Australian Indigenous languages, but many Indigenous languages are still not well documented. Less than ninety languages have an extensive grammar while less than sixty languages have an extensive dictionary. 'Extensive' as we use it here, means a grammar or a dictionary of over two hundred pages. Compared to grammars and dictionaries of languages like English or French, this provides little information about each language. More work needs to be done on each of these documented, little documented, and undocumented languages. Documentation work is urgently required as most Indigenous languages are declining and not fully spoken anymore. STATE OF INDIGENOUS LANGUAGES Language endangerment It is estimated that more than a half of over 6,000 world languages spoken today will be replaced by dominant languages. This means that more than 3,000 languages will no longer be spoken by the end of the 21st century. The Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger (2009) shows that languages in danger of becoming extinct are found in almost every part of the world. National Geographic's Enduring Voice Project on endangered languages of the world identifies five Language Hotspots, areas where many languages are facing near extinction. These Hotspots occur in Australia, Central and Eastern Siberia and North and South America. Each of the languages facing extinction embodies cultural, traditional and ecological knowledge unique to its speakers. Thus, when a language becomes extinct, the means to express such knowledge will also be lost. The loss of a language may result in the loss of human knowledge about the world we live in. One may think that such knowledge can still be expressed in another language, for example, in English. But this is not entirely true as English may lack the vocabulary, or some complex meaning expressed in the original language becomes lost in translation. For example, Australian Indigenous words for 'law' encompass more than what the English word for 'law' means. They also encompass the way one should behave in relation to the land, ancestors, and one’s kin. 3. STRONG INDIGENOUS LANGUAGES Endangerment measurement In order to demonstrate the extent of language endangerment, UNESCO developed measurement criteria for language vitality and endangerment. This consists of nine criteria. Based on these nine criteria, the NILS Report 2005 proposed ten language endangerment indicators for Australian Indigenous languages. The most important indicator is 'intergenerational language transmission'. This indicator measures to what extent language is transmitted from older to younger generations. Naturally, if a language is not transmitted to younger generations, the language can become extinct when older generations with the knowledge of the language all die. Another important indicator is the number of speakers in proportion to the total population of people who identify with the language. Language is one of the most important means of self-identification, and those who no longer speak their own language may still identify themselves with their language. The number of speakers itself is not as important as the proportion. In the case of Australia, some Indigenous languages were only ever spoken by a small number of speakers, perhaps 50 to 100 people. A small number of speakers in relation to a small number of people who identify with the language may not mean that the language is endangered. In reality, however, such a language is often endangered. Language endangerment in Australia Since colonisation, Australian Indigenous languages have seen decline, and many of them have been replaced by English or creoles. According to the NILS report, among the original 250 or so languages, only about 145 Indigenous languages are still spoken to some degree. Many languages are not fully spoken by anybody, and only some words and phrases are remembered. Less than 20 languages are considered to be strong in the sense that they are still spoken by all generations. The majority of strong languages are spoken in remote areas of Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland, where it was difficult for colonists to reach and establish settlements. This area coincides with the National Geographic's Language Hotspot where severely endangered languages are found. In the rest of the country, south-eastern Australia, the majority of Indigenous languages, especially languages along the coast, are no longer spoken or they once ceased to be spoken and they are currently under revitalisation, as shown in map 3. Indigenous language endangerment in Australia is clearly illustrated by the decline of Indigenous language speakers among all age groups of the Indigenous population aged 5 years and over. At the 1996 Census, 12.1% of the Indigenous population were Indigenous language speakers, declining to 11.1% at 2001 and 9.2 % at 2006, as shown in graph 4. Although the above depicts a gloomy picture of Australian Indigenous languages, there is some good news. Some languages have had success in their revitalisation programs and as a result the number of speakers has increased. For example, the 2006 census shows that there were 34 Kaurna and 159 Ngarrindjeri speakers, while previously figures for these languages were not available because it was considered that the languages were no longer spoken. 4. INDIGENOUS LANGUAGES SPOKEN (a) LANGUAGE DOCUMENTATION AND PRESERVATION In Australia, people, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous, have been trying to maintain surviving languages and also revive languages that have not been spoken for many years. There are three categories of programs on Indigenous languages across Australia: research programs; community language programs; and school language programs. Research programs Researchers, mainly linguists and some anthropologists, have been documenting and analysing Indigenous languages. They visit Indigenous communities, make recordings of Indigenous languages, transcribe recordings, analyse the transcription, write a grammar and create a word list or a dictionary. The whole process takes a long time and cannot be done without collaboration with Indigenous people. Some languages have only a few older speakers left, and it is urgently required to record these languages while there are remaining speakers. Where languages are no longer spoken, researchers may analyse older, pre-existing documentation. Researchers primarily publish results of their research in academic domains, but some researchers also produce material for Indigenous people to use in their language revitalisation and maintenance. In whatever formats and forums they are produced, results of research contribute not only to the maintenance or revitalisation of Indigenous languages, but also to our understanding about language - the more we understand each language in the world, the more we understand the structure and function of human language. Community language programs While researchers study Indigenous languages often for academic purposes, Indigenous people are most often motivated to work towards language revitalisation and maintenance. Where languages have become extinct, Indigenous people often do not like to think that their languages are dead. Rather they often speak of their languages as 'sleeping' or 'resting'. Indigenous people are trying to revive their languages often from the little historical documentation available. For example, before it went to sleep, the Awabakal language from the Newcastle area was documented by an English missionary, Lancelot Edward Threlkeld, in the early 19th century. Today, the Awabakal people have been trying to revive and maintain the Awabakal language using this resource, but there are no sound recordings of this language and it is near impossible to find out how Awabakal words used to be pronounced. The current generation has to work out how they might have been pronounced from the way words are spelled by Threlkeld and from information on neighbouring languages. Where languages are still strong, Indigenous people run language maintenance and documentation programs. Sometimes language programs are combined with other kinds of activities. For example, the Thalanyji people in the Pilbara region, with assistance from a community linguist, Eleanora Deak, documented their knowledge about flora in the Thalanyji language and published a plant book Ngambunyjarri (2007 Hayes and Hayes). The book has Thalanyji, English and scientific names of each plant with information about the plant in both Thalanyji and English, accompanied by pictures. The project delivered benefits other than the documentation of language and traditional knowledge (End note 6): two Thalanyji speakers increased their recording and computing skills as well as confidence in written and spoken Thalanyji. The project also increased pride in the Indigenous community and raised awareness of the Thalanyji language, knowledge and culture among non-Indigenous people.
School language programs Across Australia, some schools offer Indigenous language programs. Out of 250 Indigenous languages, over 80 languages were taught to Indigenous and non-Indigenous students in 260 schools in 2006. This constituted 2.7% of the total number of schools in Australia, 11.3% of Indigenous students and 0.3% of non-Indigenous students involved in some sort of Indigenous language program (End note 7). As shown in graph 5, Indigenous language programs taught at school are divided into four types:
Cartoon by Samanti de Silva Only first language maintenance programs are aimed at students whose first languages are Indigenous languages. Others are for Indigenous students who have some knowledge of their languages or Indigenous or non-Indigenous students who do not have any knowledge of Indigenous languages. The first language maintenance programs include bilingual or two-way programs, although the number of schools which offer such a program is very few.
5. TYPES OF INDIGENOUS LANGUAGE PROGRAMS IN SCHOOLS (a) INDIGENOUS LANGUAGES IN EVERYDAY LIFE Today, Indigenous languages are integrated into everyday Australian life. Many Indigenous words are borrowed into Australian English. Most of the borrowed words are nouns. Mulga, bogong, dingo, kookaburra, barrumandi, yabby, conkerberry, jackeroo, yakka, and billabong are all words borrowed into Australian English from Indigenous languages. Some streets in the Australian Capital Territory are named after Indigenous language names: Bindubi, Bandjalong, Arabana, Larakia, Alawa, Dalabon and so on. Many other place names in Australia come from Indigenous language words or place names, while many Indigenous place names are not in use publicly and have been replaced by English names. Some Indigenous people are asking for a dual place-naming system, in English and in a local Indigenous language. The Grampians in Victoria (named after a region in Scotland) has an Indigenous name, Gariwerd, and this name is now used alongside 'The Grampians'. Some non-Indigenous people are interested in using Indigenous words for naming their babies, properties, companies, and so on, out of their interest in Indigenous culture or as an act of showing respect to Indigenous people. However, some Indigenous people are very sensitive about the use of Indigenous words by non-Indigenous people, and so it is best for non-Indigenous people to consult Indigenous people before they use Indigenous words for any purpose. Throughout Australia, it is becoming common practice to acknowledge traditional owners at formal occasions, with an expression such as “I would like to acknowledge the traditional owners, past and present, of this place we are meeting in today”. In return, some Indigenous groups have devised welcome expressions.
Recently, with the government's apology to the Stolen Generations, ecological issues, and native title claims and determinations, Australians are becoming more aware of Indigenous languages, cultures and knowledge. Australian Indigenous languages, cultures and knowledge are a unique part of Australia's heritage. They are still alive in this land and are not things to be considered as museum pieces or historical artefacts. It is up to the current generation of Australians, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, to decide whether this heritage unique to Australia will survive in this world. The NILS report provides a number of recommendations on Indigenous languages including: the establishment of regional and national Indigenous language centres; and Indigenous language programs based on the Master and Apprentice scheme and Language Nests which have seen success overseas. It also recommends development of a National Indigenous Languages Policy. Drawing on these recommendations in the NILS report and other past reports and recommendations on Indigenous languages, the Australian Government has committed to addressing the serious problem of language loss in Indigenous communities. In August 2009 the government announced its approach to the preservation of Indigenous languages (End note 9). This approach is aimed at keeping Indigenous languages strong and alive, and calls for improved coordination between Indigenous organisations involved in language programs, government departments, research organisations, collecting institutions, and educational bodies. Welcome sign at the boundary of Wathaurong Country. END NOTES
2. The most comprehensive list of Australian Indigenous languages, including those no longer spoken, is available through AUSTLANG, an online Australian Indigenous languages database. 3. Foley, William A. 1986. The Papuan Languages of New Guinea, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. 4. Evans, Nicholas (ed.). 2003. The non-Pama-Nyungan languages of northern Australia: comparative studies of the continent's most linguistically complex region, Pacific Linguistics, Canberra. 5. Lee, J. 2004. Kriol-Ingglish Dikshenri: Kriol-English Dictionary: draft: October 2009. 6. Although medicinal information about plants was collected, this information is not included in the published book at the request of the Thalanyji people. 7. Indigenous Languages Programmes in Australian Schools - A Way Forward, Australian Council for Educational Research 2008 provides the number of schools that have language programs, the number of students learning Indigenous languages, and the number of Indigenous languages taught. Schools, Australia 2006, (4221.0), ABS, provides the number of full-time students and the number of total schools. 8. Kaurna Warra Pintyandi web site <http://www.adelaide.edu.au/kwp/> 9. Indigenous Languages - A National Approach, Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts. REFERENCES Australian Bureau of Statistics 2005, Australian Standard Classification of Languages (ASCL), 2005-06, (1267.0), 2nd edn, ABS, Canberra. Australian Bureau of Statistics 2006, Population Characteristics, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, Australia, 2006, (4713.0.55.001), ABS, Canberra. Australian Bureau of Statistics 2007, Schools Australia 2006, (4221.0), ABS, Canberra. Australian Bureau of Statistics 2008, Year Book Australia, 2008, (1301.0), ABS, Canberra. Australian Council for Educational Research 2008, Indigenous Languages Programmes in Australian Schools - A Way Forward, Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, Canberra. Amery, R 2000, Warrabarna Kaurna!: reclaiming an Australian language, Swets & Zeitlinger Publishers, Exton, (PA). Areyonga School 2009, 'Areyonga Two-Way School: What we do and why we do it', a presentation given at the symposium, Bilingual Education in the Northern Territory: principles, policy and practice, 26 June 2009, Canberra. Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies and Federation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Languages 2005, National Indigenous Languages Survey Report 2005, Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Canberra. Curr, E.M 1886-1887, The Australian Race: its origin, languages, customs, place of landing in Australia, and the routes by which it spread itself over that continent, John Farnes, Government Printer, Trubner, Melbourne, London. <http://www1.aiatsis.gov.au/exhibitions/languages/lang_hm.html> Dixon, R.M.W, et al. 2006, Australian Aboriginal words in English: their origin and meaning, Oxford University Press, South Melbourne. Evans, Nicholas (ed.) 2003, The non-Pama-Nyungan languages of northern Australia: comparative studies of the continent's most linguistically complex region, Pacific Linguistics, Canberra. Foley, William A 1986, The Papuan Languages of New Guinea, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Hale, Horatio E 1846, 'Ethnography and philology', United States Exploring Expedition, during the years 1838, 1839, 1840, 1841, 1842, under the command of Charles Wilkes, U.S.N., vol. 6, Lea and Blanchard, New York. Hayes, Anne and Shirley Hayes 2007, Ngambunyjarri ngambunyjarri Thalanyjibarndi yininyjarri, Wangka Maya Pilbara Aboriginal Language Centre, Onslow, WA. Holi Baibul, 2007, Bible Society in Australia Inc., Minto, NSW. Larmer, James 1832-1853, Larmer manuscripts, n.d Manuscripts, held at Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney. McHughes, Eileen, Phyllis Williams, Verna Koolmatrie, and Mary-Anne Gale 2009, Lakun Ngarrindjeri Thunggari: weaving the Ngarrindjeri language back to health, Paper presented at the AIATSIS Conference 2009, Canberra. Mathews, R.H Notebook Thurga and Jirringany, n.d. Manuscript, MS 8006 Series 3/5 in Mathews collection held at the National Library of Australia. O'Connell, J.F and J. Allen 2004, 'Dating the colonization of Sahul (Pleistocene Australia-New Guinea): a review of recent research', Journal of Archaeological Science, vol. 31, pp. 835-853, Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, New York. Wafer and Lissarrague 2008, A Handbook of Aboriginal Languages of New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory, Muurrbay Aboriginal Language & Culture Co-operative, Nambucca Heads, NSW. WEBSITES AUSTLANG: online Australian Indigenous Languages Database, last viewed October 2009, <http://austlang.aiatsis.gov.au> AUSTKIN project, last viewed October 2009, <http://austkin.pacific-credo.fr/> Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, Ethnomathematics in Australia, last viewed October 2009, <http://www1.aiatsis.gov.au/exhibitions/ethnomathmatics/ethno_hm.htm> Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts, Indigenous Languages - A National Approach, last viewed October 2009, <http://www.arts.gov.au/indigenous/languages_policy> Kaurna Warra Pintyandi, last viewed October 2009, <http://www.adelaide.edu.au/kwp/> Lee, J 2004 Kriol-Ingglish Dikshenri: Kriol-English Dictionary: draft: October 2004, last viewed October 2009, <http://www1.aiatsis.gov.au/ASEDA/docs/0739-Kriol/index.1.html> Nash, David Language policies for Australian languages, last viewed October 2009, <http://www.anu.edu.au/linguistics/nash/aust/policy.html> National Geographic, Disappearing languages, last viewed October 2009, <http://www.nationalgeographic.com/mission/enduringvoices/> Monash University, SahulTime, last viewed October 2009, <http://sahultime.monash.edu.au/> UNESCO, Interactive Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger, last viewed October 2009, <http://www.unesco.org/culture/ich/index.php?pg=00206> UNESCO, A methodology for assessing language vitality and endangerment, last viewed October 2009, <http://www.unesco.org/culture/ich/index.php?pg=00142> Document Selection These documents will be presented in a new window.
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