Themes
Language, kinship and heritage
Language revitalisation and education
Conference Papers
Session LRE1: Language revitalisation and education 1
1. Laura Bennetts-Kneebone: Are urban kids learning Indigenous languages?
Full paper | Audio | Video | Slideshow 
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Abstract
Footprints in Time has interviewed over 1850 parents of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in over a dozen sites around Australia. This presentation will use Wave 1 survey and qualitative data from the Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children to explore the issue of Indigenous language loss and maintenance in urban and remote communities. There is a strong perception that Indigenous languages are only spoken in remote Indigenous communities. Looking at this data, we will be able to show whether this is true for the families who responded to our survey. Collectively, 101 different languages were spoken by respondents (primary carers of Indigenous children). The most commonly spoken languages were English, Kriol, Torres Strait Creole, Djambarrpuyngu and Kalaw Kawaw Ya. Of these 19% spoke two languages; 6% spoke three languages; 2% spoke four languages; and 1% spoke five or more languages. The presentation will relate to how Footprints in Time can contribute to the broader dialogue on a number of questions relating to language attitudes and language use: Which languages are being spoken by parents and learnt by children?; Are urban Indigenous children more likely to learn foreign languages than an Indigenous language?; Do certain activities or family relationships play a role in language maintenance?; How many families speak an Indigenous language as their main language?; How are Indigenous languages connected to identity?
Author bio:
Laura Bennetts Kneebone has been working for the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (FaHCSIA), on Footprints in Time: The Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children, for over two years. Her role includes longitudinal survey design and analysis, and the management, design and analysis of qualitative research. She participates in fieldwork whenever she has the opportunity. Her particular interest is in the area of language acquisition and use, including both Indigenous languages and English. Laura has a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Linguistics and Anthropology from La Trobe University and has previously worked on research projects relating to a minority language in China and Aboriginal languages in Victoria.
2. R. Amery & V K Buckskin: Handing on the teaching of Kaurna language to Kaurna youth
Full paper | Audio | Video | Slideshow 1.2MB
Abstract
Kaurna, the language of the Adelaide Plains, has been taught now for many years. It was introduced into Kaurna Plains Early Childhood Centre in 1989/90 and Kaurna Plains School in 1992 and has been taught there ever since. It has also been taught in a range of other schools and institutions to children of all ages, adults, members of the Kaurna community and to the public at large. By far the biggest hurdle confronting effort to implement Kaurna language programs has been finding the teachers. Teaching languages requires special skills, and teaching a language, such as Kaurna, that is being reclaimed from written sources poses additional challenges, not least being the need to learn the language first and to be flexible and creative in developing new words and expressions where needed. It has been especially difficult to find young Kaurna people to take on the teaching. One who has risen to the challenge is Jack Kanya Buckskin. Jack started out working on Kaurna language projects, work which included recording Kaurna words and phrases. He began attending Kaurna language classes at Warriparinga, team taught these classes in 2008 and in 2009 takes full responsibility for these and other Kaurna language classes at Kaurna Plains School. This paper reflects on the positives that flow from taking on the teaching role, as well as some of the difficulties faced.
Author bios:
Rob Amery, Linguistics, University of Adelaide. Rob completed a research Masters in 1985 at ANU on Dhuwaya, a koine variety of Yolngu Matha that has arisen at Yirrkala, northeast Arnhemland and a PhD at the University of Adelaide in 1998 (published in August 2000) on Kaurna language reclamation. He serves as consultant linguist to Kaurna language programs and community projects which incorporate Kaurna language. He works closely with members of the Kaurna community to reclaim the language from historical materials and develop the language for use in a range of contemporary contexts. This includes convening the Kaurna Warra Pintyandi (KWP) group, a small Kaurna language planning group consisting of Kaurna people and others involved in the teaching and development of the language. The KWP group meets monthly to address requests for names and translations and to work on Kaurna language projects. In 2007 Rob received a UNESCO award in recognition of this work. Rob has previously worked in Aboriginal Health in remote Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory and Western Australia, and has taught linguistics at Batchelor College (now Batchelor Institute) and Northern Territory University (now Charles Darwin University). In 1993-94 he developed the Australian Indigenous Languages Framework (AILF) for the teaching of Aboriginal languages at senior secondary level.
Vincent, or Jack, as he prefers to be called, is a Kaurna and Narrunga man. Jack began working on Kaurna language projects at the University of Adelaide including the Southern Kaurna Placenames, Kaurna in the Public Arena, Kaurna Learners’ Guide and Kaurna Phonology projects. Jack began teaching Kaurna language at Warriparinga together with Rob Amery through the School of Languages. He now teaches this language program by himself as well as programs at Kaurna Plains School, Le Fevre HS and previously at Adelaide High School. Jack is a leading member of the Kaurna dance group called Kuma Karro ‘One Blood’ and previously danced with Taikurtinna ‘Family’ where he integrates Kaurna language into his performances. When not working and performing Jack likes to research and learn more about his culture and the history of his people. In July 2009 Jack was an invited participant at the ‘Young, Gifted and BLAK’ Aboriginal writers’ workshop in Sydney with Alexis Wright.
3. M-A. Gale, E McHughes & P. Williams: Lakun Ngarrindjeri Thunggari: weaving the Ngarrindjeri language back to health
Full paper | Audio | Video | Slideshow 930KB
Abstract
Unlike many Aboriginal languages of southern Australia, the Ngarrindjeri language of the Lower Murray, Lakes and Coorong region never went to sleep. Ngarrindjeri people have always retained a healthy set of around four hundred words which are readily used in their everyday English speech. Over the last few years, however, the Ngarrindjeri language has started to take on new forms and functions. People, such as the respected Elder Auntie Eileen McHughes, receive regular requests to give speeches solely in Ngarrindjeri. Similarly, the Health Worker Phyllis Williams works alongside others in the community to translate old hymns and favourite songs to be performed and sung in the Ngarrindjeri language at special cultural events.
Ngarrindjeri people are well known for their skills as weavers, and just as Eileen and Phyllis weave beautifully intricate baskets and mats, they are now weaving new and creative sentences in the Ngarrindjeri language. This emerging skill of weaving carefully constructed sentences for specific purposes is only possible today because of the past efforts of Elders, who worked alongside missionaries and ethnographers to document their language in various forms. The last fluent speakers of the Ngarrindjeri language passed away in the late 1960s, but by accessing their recordings (held at AIATSIS), and by re-interpreting the written records of others, the Ngarrindjeri language is once again being spoken in full sentences. Auntie Eileen, Auntie Phyllis and Mary-Anne Gale are a part of a team who are working hard to facilitate this exciting and up-lifting process.
In this presentation, Eileen McHughes will reflect on what she is doing in the Ngarrindjeri language, particularly in the giving of ‘welcome speeches’, naming organisations and bestowing names on new borns. Eileen will also discuss her role as a consultant Elder in the running of several pilot language training courses taught through SA TAFE. Phyllis Williams will reflect on her job as a Health Worker, and how the Ngarrindjeri language plays an important role in promoting better health and well-being amongst the young and old.
Mary-Anne Gale, a teacher and linguist, will give an overview on what is happening in South Australian schools regarding the teaching of the Ngarrindjeri language. She will also summarise the multitude of resources that have been produced recently in the language for use in schools and the community. But related to these two topics is the need for training for adults involved in the revival of the Ngarrindjeri language. This need is confirmed by both Eileen and Phyllis, who studied linguistics at Batchelor in the 1960s. The success of any language revival program, whether it be in schools or in the community, is highly dependent on having good people on the job who have confidence in using the language. But if these good people leave, the programs quickly unravel – just as a basket collapses if the strong threads are removed.
Mary-Anne will outline the SA TAFE language course that has just been written for national accreditation, which aims to offer Certificate 1V in Learning and Teaching an Endangered Aboriginal Language. This course will hopefully be offered in 2010 for the first time to those Aboriginal people in SA who wish to re-learn their own Aboriginal language, as well as learn how to teach their language to others.
Author bios:
Mary-Anne Gale is a research fellow at the University of Adelaide and University of South Australia, and has been working in the field of Aboriginal Education since 1978. She began as a teacher and then teacher linguist working in bilingual schools in the Northern Territory (Milingimbi, Yirrkala and Willowra) with Yolngu Matha and Warlpiri programs, and later with the Anangu Teacher Education Program (AnTEP) in South Australia working with Pitjantjatjara schools. She is currently working with the people of the Lower Murray region in SA in reviving the Ngarrindjeri language, and has just written a TAFE Certificate IV course for national accreditation for the training of Aboriginal teachers wanting to re-learn and teach Aboriginal languages being revived. Her book publications include: Dhangum Djorra’wuy Dhäwu: a history of writing in Aboriginal languages; My Side of the Bridge: the life story of Veronica Brodie; and And the Clock Struck Thirteen: the life and thoughts of Kaurna Elder Uncle Lewis Yerloburka O’Brien. She has also produced many Aboriginal language resources including: a dictionary, alphabet books, a learners’ guide, many language curricula, a poetry book, and language CDs. Her PhD was “Poor Bugger Whitefella Got No Dreaming: the representation and appropriation of published Dreaming narratives with specific reference to the writings of David Unaipon”.
My name is Phyllis Williams; I was born at Murray Bridge in South Australia. I am an Ngarrindjeri woman, a mother of five children, grandmother of 20 plus and great grand-mother of 4 plus children. I am employed as an Aboriginal Health Worker with Southern Fleurieu Health Service based at Victor Harbor adjacent to the South Coast District Hospital. Victor Harbor is approximately 90 kilometres from the city of Adelaide. In my position of Health Worker, my core business is using references to the Primary Health Care principals of Health. I am required to promote health and well being to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people living on the Fleurieu Peninsula. Some of the health promotion and community development activities that I am involved with are: Nutrition, Well Women’s Health and screenings, Fitness, Arts and Craft sessions etc. As part of the Arts and Craft sessions we are resurrecting our traditional craft of weaving. We have also taken up the challenge to revive our traditional language and conduct these revival sessions once a month where we connect with our Elders who have retained some of the language and have translated songs into our native tongue.
Nganawi mi:tji Yaili:ni McHughes. Nganawi laklinyeri Kropindjeri. Nganawi nangai Alban Richard Kropindjeri, Murrundi-nendi. Nganawi ningkuwi Gertrude Elizabeth Gollan, Kurrangk-nendi. I was born on 5th January 1941 Pomberuk-angk (in Murray Bridge), but I grew up at three mile camp south of Tailem Bend with several other Ngarrindjeri families.
In 1985 I went to the School of Australian Languages at Batchelor in the NT to work with Steve Johnson on my Ngarrindjeri language. Together we compiled a wordlist of 250 words. More recently I have worked with Mary-Anne Gale to include these words and many more in a much bigger Ngarrindjeri dictionary. In the past two year I have been doing ‘Welcome to country’ in language, and helping to translate hymns into Ngarrindjeri for special performances. I would like to do further research and increase my knowledge of my language by accessing the tapes of my language held in the archives at AIATSIS. My grandfather, Michael Gollan, and his sister Bessy Rigney are on the tapes, as well as many other people who I remember.