Reconciliation and Social Justice Library
Reconciliation and Social Justice Library
2.1 As outlined in Chapter 1 there were approximately 250 distinct languages when European colonisation of Australia began just over 200 years ago. These languages each had their own range of dialects which probably totalled about 600. Professor R.M.W. Dixon estimates the number of speakers per language ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand speakers 6 . Estimates of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population at the time vary but it is likely to have been more than 300,000. All of the population would have spoken at least one of the indigenous Australian languages. In the 1986 Census 227,645 people identified themselves as being of ATSI descent (206,104 Aboriginal and 21,541 Torres Strait Islanders) making up 1.5% of the Australian population. However, Dr Schmidt in her report estimated that only 10% of all ATSI people now speak an indigenous language. The Census identified 18.4% as speaking an ATSI language at home (6.4% in urban areas and 42.1 in rural areas) but this probably includes creoles and may be overstated for reasons discussed in Paragraph 2.16. At the same time it is believed that the Census undercounts ATSI people in isolated communities where traditional language is strongest 7 .
2.2 The original language groups were small nations with their own culture, language, kinship rules and traditional boundaries. While dealings with nearby or related language groups were common as was intermarriage and resultant multilingualism these small groups were solely responsible for the maintenance of their particular language and culture.
2.3 The dependence on an oral heritage together with the small number of speakers of some languages meant that these languages and cultures were very vulnerable to the various influences wrought by European settlement. Unlike minority immigrant languages Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages do not have a large overseas pool of language speakers or literature to draw on when a decline in language threatens its continuance. Dr Schmidt observes that on an international level what are considered to be small minority languages tend to be numbered in tens of thousands of speakers. 8 Dr Schmidt estimates that the four
largest surviving traditional language groups in Australia have between three and four thousand speakers and only six other languages have 1000 or more speakers 9. In addition, there are two creoles each with around 15,000 speakers 10 .
2.4 For each Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander language group, language was much more than a means of day-to-day communication. As with all other languages it is a means of group identification and contained embedded within it much of the culture, social values and world view of the language group. Adding to the crucial importance of ATSI language is the reliance on an oral heritage. Each language is a conduit of the group heritage which in many cases goes back thousands of years and conveys the history, culture and experience of the group. Stories and songs explain the origin of landforms, animals and plants, their special features and their uses. Rituals, law, social mores and technology are conveyed through, and are part of, the language. Similarly, their world view is embedded in the language that conveys it. This global view sees an individual, society, the land and nature as part of an integrated entity. The language that a person thinks in is an essential and distinctive part of that person.
2.5 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages are an important part of Australia's cultural heritage. Their unique linguistic features are also significant in terms of world heritage. These languages are characterised by subtle and intricate grammars. 11 Each language probably had a vocabulary of at least 10,000 words, which is about the size of the receptive vocabulary of the average citizen in any country today. 12 Many languages have ancillary vocabularies for special relational speech styles. Special styles and vocabularies may be used amongst initiated men. An avoidance style including its own vocabulary is used in many languages when in the presence of someone with whom minimal contact is required by kinship rules, eg. between a man and his mother-in-law. 13 Kinship rules are quite elaborate and specific and govern a number of aspects of life such as marriageability. The terminology for these complex rules is embedded in language:
The Aboriginal relationship system is extremely complicated, In the Yolngu system, for example, there are literally dozens of kinship terms each bearing certain responsibilities and even certain feelings that go with that relation. Everyone in the Aboriginal world is related. Everyone fits irreplaceably into a complex circular system which accurately reflects the timelessness of their world views. 14
2.6 Kinship rules often require, and usually permit, marriage between speakers of different languages or dialects. Consequently people learnt the language of their mother, father and spouse where these are different. In the past most Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were multilingual and many still are today.