Reconciliation and Social Justice Library
Reconciliation and Social Justice Library
There are a number of objectives in language maintenance. These include increasing language awareness by drawing attention to its fragility, maximising its use amongst community members, increasing pride in language and culture and reducing unnecessary pressures that are destructive of language.
Language maintenance also insolves the recording of languages and developing dictionaries and grammars. Recording needs to be done in such a way that the language can be subsequently transmitted. Many languages have been lost and there is an urgent need to record remaining languages.
The committee recommends that a language awareness campaign be directed to all Aboriginal communities with living traditional languages, to draw attention to the dangers posed to languages, even strong languages. This campaign should utilise the extended network of regional language centres and should be primarily directed at self-help. It should suggest steps that communities can take to strengthen their language and explain where training and other assistance may be obtained.
The lack of understanding in the wider community about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages places unnecessary barriers in the way of the use and maintenance of these languages.