Mystery Road: Origin: Trailer
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MIKAYLA HELMS: Mura-gu means spear. Thinna means feet. CALE MATTHEWS, REPORTER: This is Mikayla, and what you're listening to is a First Nations Language that is spoken by fewer than 50 people, Ngiyampaa. MIKAYLA HELMS: I've always been very in touch with my Aboriginal culture and I've done a lot of things, but never specifically Ngiyampaa, so never specifically my mob. Mikayla went to school in Ulladulla and Canberra, but during school holidays she travelled about 1,000 kays to Menindee, to visit her Nan, Aunty Beryl Carmichael. MIKAYLA HELMS: You know, I'd go out on country with my nan and she'd tell me all these stories and you know, she'd tell us the dreamings and she'd sing us songs and all of that, but I never thought of it as something that I should be learning. Her Nan died last year and was one of the last people to grow up speaking Ngiyampaa, but since starting a school project in year 12, Mikayla has been helping to keep the language alive. MIKAYLA HELMS: Now I'm focusing on documenting everything from my Nan and her memories as the last fluent speaker, and this is a book that she wrote in 1986 and most of the book is just her poetry and stories that she's written, but at the end she's got a bunch of Ngiyampaa words that she's documented. Ngiyampaa isn't the only First Nations language that is considered under threat. In fact, Australia has one of the highest rates of lost languages anywhere in the world. Throughout the country, there are more than 250 Indigenous languages, including 800 different dialects. But since colonisation, the number of people actually speaking those languages has dropped significantly. In 2016, just 120 different languages were actively spoken, 1/4 of them were only spoken by elders and just 12 are considered strong and spoken as a first language. LAUREN REED, AIATSIS DIRECTOR: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages are uniquely Australian cultural heritage. So they're something that all Australians should be immensely proud of and that we all, both indigenous and non indigenous, bear a responsibility to keep safe and strong for generations into the future. Lauren Reed is the director of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, or AIATSIS. She says First Nations languages haven't necessarily been lost, but rather actively silenced. LAUREN REED: Communities have and are still prevented from using their languages, whether through past racist policies like the stolen generation or even current kind of issues of communities not being able to access interpreters easily, or being able to access materials that are translated into their languages so they can access government services just as easily as an English speaker would be. But over the last few years, things have been changing. LAUREN REED: Communities are working really hard to bring their languages back into daily use after generations of being silenced and communities are doing this in a number of different ways. While the 4th AIATSIS National Indigenous Languages Survey is set to come out later this year, data suggests that the number of languages being reawakened is set to double from 31 in 2019 to more than 60 this year. That's languages that are actively being brought back by communities after a long period of having no speakers. LAUREN REED: For some communities, they're working closely with their old people, getting them together to help them remember and recall language that they might have spoken or heard as children. 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LAUREN REED: A language in Indigenous Australia isn't just a way of speaking. Language and culture are completely interconnected and country is also interconnected with language and culture as well. So when language is lost, culture can be really seriously impacted. MIKAYLA HELMS: I've got so many cousins and so many relatives that are, you know, just as passionate as me and wanting to help me and support me and willing to share all their knowledge with me so that we can save this language because Nana Beryl was all of our matriarch. She was like the soul of the family, and so we all do everything for her.
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ABC iview Home Watch all your favourite ABC programs on ABC iview. More from ABC We acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Australians and Traditional Custodians of the lands where we live, learn and work.
