| aboriginal languages news |
| Women on front line of language preservation 8 April 2009 - SPURRED on by the critical need to halt the loss of endemic indigenous languages across Australia, academics at the Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education in the Northern Territory are finding themselves involved in a front-line offensive. |
| 2,500 languages threatened with extinction: UNESCO 21 February 2009 - PARIS (AFP) - The world has lost Manx in the Isle of Man, Ubykh in Turkey and last year Alaska's last native speaker of Eyak, Marie Smith Jones, died, taking the aboriginal language with her. |
| Vanishing tongues and success stories from around the world 23 January 2009 - The task First Nations language activists have undertaken is nothing short of defying a multi-century trend that has seen minority languages wither and disappear in a competition against the languages of empires past and present. English, Spanish, Russian and others can bully minority languages into oblivion through social and economic pressure, assimilationist educational policies, the effect of the mass media and other factors. |
| Aboriginal language at risk in NT: watchdog 6 December 2008 - AUSTRALIA'S human rights watchdog has accused the Northern Territory ALP government of threatening the existence of the world's "longest surviving continuous culture" by severely restricting the teaching of Aboriginal languages. |
| Calls for national indigenous languages policy 1 October 2008 - The Alice Springs-based group who created Ngapartji Ngapartji (a play which has sold out to national audiences and is a 2008 nominee for a prestigious Deadly Award), are calling on the Federal Government to urgently introduce a National Indigenous Languages policy. |
A completely permitted view of Aboriginal Australia |
| Now locals can paddle their own canoe 8 September 2008 - FOR five years, the Australian filmmaker Rolf de Heer has been drawn back to the stories of a remote Arnhem Land community. |
Why Coogee smells in history |
The resurrection of a language long lost |
| International Day of the World’s Indigenous People 8 August 2008 - HREOC - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, Tom Calma, has urged governments to fund and resource the protection and promotion of Indigenous languages, as part of this year’s International Day of the World's Indigenous People (9 August). |
| Aboriginal languages to be revived using all resources 26 June 2008 - An Aboriginal Language Conference held in Adelaide recently, talked about reviving endangered Aboriginal languages through schools in South Australia. |
| Aboriginal communities expressing themselves through rap 9 June 2008 - There’s a very interesting video on ABC Online at the moment about Aboriginal communities using rap to pass down their language and stories. Aboriginal culture is traditionally an oral one and, in the absence of the printing press, stories were passed down family lines and within cultural groups using creative media such as song, music and dance. |
| Aboriginal languages 'dying out' 4 February 2008 - BBC UK - Campaigners in Australia have warned that indigenous languages are declining at record levels. |
| Australia's 'stolen' children get apology but no cash 13 January 2008 - The Observer - As one of Australia's 'stolen generation', John Moriarty was only four when he was taken away from his mother: loaded on to an army truck and sent thousands of kilometres away from his home in the Gulf of Carpentaria to be raised in a series of bleak institutions. He was given a birth date - April Fool's Day - forbidden to speak his Yanyuwa language and did not see his mother again for 10 years. |
| Aboriginal Languages Slowly Making Way into Australian Schools 4 December 2007 - Voice of America - On the eve of European settlement in Australia, around 250 indigenous languages were spoken. |
| This is 'black children overboard', say elders 27 June 2007 - A letter read to them by elder Donald Fraser, recounted first in English, then in the Pitjantjatjara tongue that is still the first language of the old people, polititely advises that a small contingent of federal and territory officials, together with at least one Federal Police officer, would like to visit and talk to them this morning. |
| Bible translated for Aborigines 7 May 2007 - BBC UK - The Bible has been translated into an Australian Aboriginal language for the first time. |
| Oscar hopes dashed for 'ten canoes' 17 January 2007 - Australia's first Aboriginal-language film, Ten Canoes, has missed out on a chance at an Oscar nomination for best foreign film. |
| Aboriginal film dominates awards 10 December 2006 - (BBC UK) - Australia's first Aboriginal language movie has dominated the country's top cinema awards. |
| Aboriginal Languages Slowly Making Way into Australian Schools 4 December 2007 - Voice of America - On the eve of European settlement in Australia, around 250 indigenous languages were spoken. |
| Australia
picks Aboriginal film for Oscar nod 5 September 2006 - The first Australian film to be shot in an indigenous language, "Ten Canoes," will be Australia's entry for the 2007 Academy Awards in the foreign-language category. |
| Aboriginal
mythology debuts on silver screen 2 July 2006 -(Mail & Guardian online SA) - The subject matter was untested, the actors almost naked and the whole movie was to be made in a language spoken by only a tiny group of people -- but to film executive Brian Rosen, funding Australia's latest international film success, Ten Canoes, was a "no-brainer". |
| Minding the language: students give voice
to endangered words 30 July 2004 - It's little lunch at Darlington Public School, and between mouthfuls of bread and peanut butter Mikaela Welsh is trying out her newly acquired skills in the Wiradjuri language. "Nyan," she says, pointing to her shy, sticky grin. "Nyan - that's mouth." • Aboriginal languages for curriculum |
| Lois adds jazz to her exotic mix 10 July 2004 - Nedlands blues singer Lois Olney wants to combine one of the world's rarest languages with one of its best known musical styles - setting lyrics in Yindjibarndi to jazz. It's a project with added challenges. Though Yindjibarndi is her traditional language, it's not her first. • George Negus Tonight: Lois Olney • Refugees in Australia • My name is Lois Olney |
| New research centre to save 'lost languages' 24 March 2004 - Guardian (UK) - A language is lost every two weeks, according to the head of a new centre for research into endangered languages, which is being launched today. People are increasingly choosing to teach their children more commonly used languages in a bid to help them gain work in later life, their research says. As a result half of the 6,500 languages spoken around the world are anticipated to disappear in the next century - a rate of one every fortnight. |
| Moves to save dying languages 15 March, 2004 - HAMISH ROBERTSON: According to UNESCO, more than half of the world's 6,000 languages are in danger of dying out, ranging from native American languages in the United States to Scottish Gaelic, which is now spoken by only 60,000 or so mostly elderly people. Well, with growing concern about the rapid disappearance of so many languages around the world, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission is beginning a study of Aboriginal languages in Australia. |
| World: Dying Words -- Linguists Express Concern Over Fate Of Endangered Languages 15 August 2003 - As many as half of the world's 6,000 languages face extinction in the coming decades if measures are not taken to preserve and maintain them. This was the subject of a recent conference of international linguists in the Czech capital, Prague. Participants learned of new efforts being undertaken to preserve an important part of the world's cultural heritage. |
| Aborigines struggle to find a voice 7 October 2002 - Guardian (UK) - Australia's native languages have drifted towards extinction and it could take generations to revive them, writes David Fickling |
| When these two sisters die, a whole language will die with them 27 September 2002 - The Scotsman - What follows is about wombats. How to catch and cook them, to be more precise. It contains probably every piece of information you will ever want to hear on the subject of hairy-nosed wombats. |
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