Reconciliation and Social Justice Library

A MATTER OF SURVIVAL - SUPPORT FOR LANGUAGE WORK

3.9 Most language groups the committee spoke to sought external financial or resource assistance for language work. Professional linguistic assistance was sought as was language training for community members and language recording equipment. Where communities had access to regional language resource centres they sought better funding so that all language groups could be serviced.

3.10 The financial priority attached to language work by communities themselves varied. However, it is a very difficult choice for a community to make when language work has to compete for scarce community resources with more immediate and pressing needs such as housing and health. Most communities are not financially self-sufficient and lack adequate financial resources. From the committee's consultations and from the observations of others, priority is often not given to language programs until the language is under severe threat and when the chances for revival are minimal. However, several healthy language groups saw impending threats to their language and wished to have effective programs in place to protect, maintain and promote it.

3.11 A number of communities were acutely aware of the loss taking place in their language but were unsure as to how to go about addressing the problem. These communities knew what they wanted to happen but saw themselves surrounded by insurmountable barriers. With only the old speakers being fluent in the language the community largely comprised several generations of partial or non-speakers. Children and young adults prefer to spend free time with friends their own age, watch TV or videos, play sport or listen to or play rock music. Their parents usually do not speak the traditional language in the home and children's contact with the language is minimal. At Tully, in Far North Queensland, the committee heard that efforts to supplement the necessarily limited language classes at the high school by having older people meet the children for a period immediately after school had been unsuccessful as children had sport, homework and other higher priorities which kept them away.

3.12 The committee heard that many communities have found bush trips to be a very successful way of bringing younger and older generations together with a focus on the skills and knowledge of the elders. These provide opportunities to learn how to identify plants and animals, hunting and collecting, their uses and preparation. As well as learning traditional names, these trips also provide the opportunity for more extensive language use. Some communities are able to make these trips "traditional language only" trips, providing the possibility of introducing young people to some of the higher levels of language where initiation ceremonies are no longer held. In other communities where young people do not speak the language these trips can expand their limited vocabulary and provide an opportunity to learn other traditional matters. Bush trips are sometimes used as part of school language programs, where photos, videos and recordings from the trip can be taken back to support classroom work and produce additional learning material.

3.13 The need for language work to be carried out in an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander setting rather than a European institution was stressed by many groups. Some sought to set up their own language or cultural centre. People at Kununurra, in Western Australia, said:

Traditionally, language and culture based activities have been woven into the fabric of everyday life with no need to create a particular centre or organisation. However, nowadays Aborigines have increasingly less time and opportunities in which to conduct these important language and cultural activities and so require a centre from which these can be focused. Today there is a very rich tradition of the activities which might take place in such a centre, ranging from story telling, singing and dancing to miming, game playing and acting. These cultural activities, which once occurred in a variety of settings as people travelled through their country, now must be stored in one place. 46

3.14 The Kombumerri Aboriginal Corporation for Culture in Southern Queensland told the committee of their plans:

we propose to establish an educational centre through which we can impart information about the Yugambeh people and the appreciation that they had for their environment. We have already accumulated a huge volume of data about Yugambeh tribal burial grounds, sites, shell mounds, habitation sites, ceremonial bora rings, tool-making sites, religious sites and genealogies. 47