Language resources

AIATSIS holds a collection of language resources in various formats: print, audio, CDs, DVDs and online.

Print

The Australian Languages Collection was established early in 1981 to bring together printed material written in Australian Indigenous languages. It contains over 3,500 items, some of which include Kits containing CDROMS of audio recordings.

The library also holds numerous linguistic items on Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages. These are best found on Mura using the Language Thesaurus. A list of over 150 Language Bibliographies containing materials form the AIATSIS Library's print collection is available by clicking here.

Aboriginal Australia Wall Map

The Aboriginal Australia wall map represents work carried out for the Encyclopaedia of Aboriginal Australia. Using the published resources available between 1988 and 1994, the map attempts to represent language, tribal or nation groups of Australia's Indigenous peoples.

Click here to purchase a copy of the map from Aboriginal Studies Press.

Audiovisual

The Audiovisual Archive's Recorded Sound and Moving Image Collections include examples of over 200 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages in the form of readings, conversations, grammatical and lexical elicitation, oral histories, ceremonies and songs. To find recordings of specific languages, contact the Audiovisual Access Unit or search Mura using the Language Thesaurus. The quality and content of the material varies depending on the interests of the person who made the recording, the equipment used and the recording environment.

Depending on the purpose of the person recording, some sound recordings of language feature texts such as traditional stories or oral history accounts, while others focus on vocabulary or sentence elicitation.

Some examples of recordings in language can be heard by clicking here

Online

Language bibliographies. Lists of print resources held in the Library for over 150 languages.

AUSTLANG is a web-based Australian Indigenous language database which assembles information from various sources. AUSTLANG enables users to search for a language or place name or to navigate via a Google map, to locate information about languages.

ASEDA is the Aboriginal Studies Electronic Data Archive is a catalogue of language materials including dictionaries, word lists, grammars of about 300 langauges, some of which are available online. Copies of all materials may be requested, depending upon access and copyright conditions.

OZBIB is a bibliography, compiled in 2005, of published and unpublished works on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages held by the AIATSIS Library's Australian Languages Collection.