Reconciliation and Social Justice Library
Reconciliation and Social Justice Library
4.1 There are a number of objectives in language maintenance. The first is to increase language awareness by drawing attention to its fragility, its value and the need for its transmission to children. It is essential that parents speak to their children in language and insist on it being spoken back. ATSIC in its submission said:
It falls to language speakers themselves to maintain community languages. For a language to survive in a 'living sense it is necessary for it to be used for communication among community members and be taught to children to ensure its carriage to successive generations. 49
Pride in a language and its culture is also essential and should be increased through language maintenance activities.
4.2 Exposure to the particular language needs to be maintained or increased. As the ATSIC quote above points out, the use of a language must be maximised among community members if it is to survive as a living language. To the extent that it is not used for everyday communication it loses currency as a living language and risks entering a slide to extinction. In communities where language is being lost additional social contexts and opportunities need to provided for language use. This can only come from a community wide recognition of the problem and agreement to increase language use opportunities.
4.3 Language knowledge needs to be increased and reinforced. Changed lifestyles with less reliance on bush tucker or children attending school for a large part of the day results in less frequent use of some parts of the language. Many communities have arranged bush trips to increase familiarity with names of animals and plants, how to identify and process them and to provide an opportunity for strengthening social language use.
4.4 Another objective of language maintenance is to reduce unnecessary pressures destructive of language. This involves restoring and maintaining pride in the language and maximising the use of language within the community rather than allow English to be used for everyday items such as posters, road signs etc. The production of books, newsletters, videos and contemporary songs in language are also useful in maintaining pride in language. The recent success of Yothu Yindu and other Aboriginal bands in the mainstream music world, while using traditional language in songs, has raised the awareness of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages. It has also helped make traditional language less "old-fashioned" to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teenagers.
4.5 The committee was concerned to see public health information booklets in some communities written in English and including translated information in a number of migrant languages but not the language of that particular community. Government agencies have a role to play by either producing information material for communities in the appropriate language or paying someone to translate it. An audio tape may need to be produced for those lacking literacy.
4.6 Similarly interpreters should be used by all governments in their official dealings with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities where the vernacular is not Standard Australian English. This includes dealings in communities where the vernacular is Aboriginal English.
4.7 A broad range of activities can be part of the language maintenance process. Amongst communities with fairly strong language use, language awareness programs are important to draw attention to the value of the language and increase pride in it. The risk, even to strong languages, of language loss needs to be emphasised. The committee notes that in its visits to strong language communities there was a good awareness of the risk of language loss.
4.8 Awareness needs to be raised of the importance of speaking in language to children and insisting that they use it in return. In a number of communities that the committee visited, it was told that children understood the language when they heard it but would not or could not speak it. If these children do not learn to speak the language the transmission link to subsequent generations will be broken. These children need structured opportunities where they can try to speak for themselves and overcome their shyness in a supportive atmosphere. All children in a community need to be encouraged at the same time, otherwise play language will revert to the lingua franca.
4.9 The role of children, teenagers and young adults in language maintenance cannot be over-stressed. They have been the creators of the two large creoles in Australia. Successive generations of children and teenagers across the world continue to bring new words into their language or change the meaning of existing words. It should be a major objective of maintenance programs for each language to maintain the interest of children, teenagers and young adults in their traditional language and to encourage its use in a variety of ways. 50
4.10 Language maintenance also includes recording of languages, developing dictionaries and grammars. While some recording of languages has been undertaken in an ad-hoc manner over the last 200 years only a few languages have been adequately recorded. 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 development of dictionaries and grammars should be undertaken by people with linguistic training. Unfortunately, there continues to be a shortage of funding for trained linguist positions to undertake Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander language work. The training of linguists is discussed in Chapter 5.
4.11 The development of dictionaries and grammars is a time-consuming business. In languages not previously written, orthographies (spelling systems) need to be settled. Where this is being undertaken by outside linguists, agreement with the language speakers is necessary. It is desirable that an orthography is settled before printed stories, dictionaries or text books are produced but this is not essential.
4.12 Tape recorders have been used for some time in recording spoken language. Today video cameras are being used increasingly for this purpose. Video recording can convey lip movements in pronunciation, facial expressions, and accompanying gestures. They may also show the country related to a particular story. As an aside, the committee notes that there is potential for the commercial production of some stories about the origins of plants, animals and landforms told in language with sub-titles in English or other languages for overseas markets.
4.13 The recording of stories is an important part of language maintenance. Although video is growing in use, print and audio tapes are still common. Communities have increasingly ready access to videos, magazines, books and music in English. Access to similar material in their own language is needed if English is not to take over completely. Radio and television broadcasts in language are highly desirable if the relevance and status of language is to be maintained. Printed material in language is important for both adults and children but to date there has been a dearth of suitable material for adults. Several communities produce community newspapers in their own language. Many songs in vernacular, or English and vernacular, are also being composed, played and recorded.
4.14 Language resource centres have become a major feature of language maintenance in Australia. Their establishment alone can be beneficial in raising language pride and awareness but the major benefits are from the programs they co-ordinate and the resources they provide or give access to. Although there are benefits, considerable money can be wasted and there can be much disappointment if people working at the language centres and on projects are not trained.
4.15 There is currently a resurgence in language awareness and pride, however it is somewhat uneven in its spread. Many communities already have the greatest single resource needed in any language maintenance program, which is the remaining speakers of that language.
4.16 The committee believes that language groups need to be more aware of the potential dangers to their language and be more prepared to discuss these problems within the community.
4.17 The committee recommends that:
the Commonwealth fund a language awareness campaign aimed at assisting all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities with living traditional languages, to draw attention to the dangers posed to languages, even strong languages. This campaign need not be resource intensive. It should be integrated into the proposed network of regional language committees and should be primarily directed at self-help. Communities should be assisted in identifying steps they can take to strengthen their language and where training and other assistance may be obtained. Funding should be in addition to that proposed for the regional language committee network. (Recommendation 1)
4.18 As discussed in Chapter 2 the wider non-ATSI community has a poor understanding of the nature of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages and many misconceptions continue. This lack of understanding frequently places unnecessary barriers in the way of the use and maintenance of ATSI languages. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people frequently feel ashamed or otherwise inhibited about using their language in the presence of non-ATSI people. The existence of their language is sometimes ignored and they are denied a voice in matters affecting them. These deficiencies do not warrant a public awareness campaign of their own. The correction of some specific deficiencies are addressed elsewhere in the report, eg. in Chapter 5 on teacher training. Schools throughout Australia are introducing Aboriginal Studies curricula so that successive younger generations will be better informed about the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander way of life including languages.
4.19 The committee recommends that:
the nature and importance of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages should he highlighted in general public education activities conducted by Commonwealth, state and territory authorities concerning Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and their culture particularly in areas where traditional language is still used. (Recommendation 2)