Reconciliation and Social Justice Library
Reconciliation and Social Justice Library
2.12 The features of a healthy language were identified in Paragraphs 1.5-1.6. Indications of a weakening language are:
· a number of members of a language group speaking another language within the group.
· failure in the traditional link of language transmission from parents to children. In these situations children do not fully learn and use their parents language and use another language to fill in the gaps in their language knowledge or use another language altogether.
2.13 At some stage a language loses its "critical mass" as a language. It ceases to be the main vehicle of communication. With the further weakening of a language it has limited social function, it tends to be spoken only by older people and the opportunities for its use diminish. Younger people cease to speak the language apart from a few words and phrases. At this stage the language is in steep decline. Its continued loss in value and utility within the community speeds its demise.
2.14 In the final stages of loss only a handful of elderly speakers remain and, unless a large scale language reversal were to occur, the language as a spoken living language will die with these people. Some linguists regard such large scale reversals as highly unlikely.
2.15 A dead, or extinct, language is one with no living speakers remaining. Dictionaries, word lists, some spoken words and phrases may survive but it is virtually impossible for the language to ever again become a living means of full everyday communication. Remaining words and phrases, however few, may still retain considerable significance to those whose ancestral language they come from. They provide some group identification, spiritual meaning, and a link with the past culture.
2.16 It is perhaps the importance of remaining fragments of language to their owners that results in some people saying they speak language when in fact they are unable to construct sentences or only speak with minimal fluency. Professor Dixon points out that a speaker of a language must "have a full command of its phonetics, grammar and vocabulary, and an ability to understand recordings of stories in that language." Recent research in the Barkly region of the Northern Territory found self-reporting to be more accurate with people saying they speak "a bit" or "half and half" when they lack fluency 20 . However, those who say they speak the language do so fluently with very few exceptions.
2.17 There are four types of loss of traditional Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages:
- replacement by English
- replacement by Aboriginal English
- replacement by another traditional language
- replacement by a creole