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ABC News
01-08-2025
- General
- ABC News
'The sky's the limit': Re-awakening Indigenous languages that have been 'actively suppressed'
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this story contains images and voices of people who have died. Mikayla Helms remembers driving 1,000 kilometres during school holidays to outback New South Wales, where she'd listen to her grandmother tell dreaming stories and call for the rain to come. Raised as a proud Ngiyampaa woman, the Canberra student always treasured her time spent on country in Menindee, in the far west of New South Wales. But it was only when she began a Year 12 school project that she realised she wanted to learn her great-grandmother Aunty Beryl Carmichael's language. "It was quite new to me, I've always been very in touch with my Aboriginal culture but never specifically … my mob," Ms Helms said. For her project, she started making an online dictionary of the Ngiyampaa — a language without any fluent speakers. Two years later, the medical science student is part of a growing number of people working to re-awaken "silenced" First Nations languages. And experts think, when it comes to revitalising languages, there's been a turning of the tide. Ms Helms's learning journey has been helped along by the treasure trove of stories, books and language recordings left behind when Aunty Beryl died in 2024. "It is very special for me and I do feel like I'm keeping her alive," Ms Helms said. "Right now I'm focusing on documenting everything from my nan and her memories. "[I have] 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." The process has also inspired Ms Helms to help others, like Aunty Beryl did. "She was one of the most important people in my life and she still is … I hope to have as much of an impact on community as she did," she said. "I would like to be a rural doctor and go out to remote communities. Ms Helms's work is crucial because, like many other First Nations languages, the Ngiyampaa dialects are considered under threat. In fact, Australia has one of the highest rates of language loss in the world. At the time of colonisation, there were more than 250 First Nations languages spoken throughout Australia. Since then, more than half of these languages have been "silenced", and about one quarter are only spoken by Elders, according to the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATIS). Just 12 languages are considered relatively strong, and spoken as a first language. "Languages weren't lost, they didn't just disappear out of view — they've been actively suppressed," AITSIS Centre for Australian Languages director Lauren Reed said. Ms Reed said First Nations communities were still being prevented from using their languages through past policies like the Stolen Generation, and due to limited access to translation services. But a positive shift in the number of communities engaging in language learning has experts hopeful the numbers could be turned around. An AIATSIS survey, released later this year, found as many as 60 languages have been "reawakened" over the past five years — previously, that number sat at 31. "Communities are working really hard to bring their languages back into use after generations of being silenced," Ms Reed said. For example, Indigenous languages are being taught in a growing number of pre-schools across the country. In Coffs Harbour, on the NSW mid-north coast, you'll find the state's first bi-lingual school with an Indigenous language, Gumbaynggirr. And in NSW's Central West, the Wiradjuri Condobolin Corporation have produced games, books and a dictionary app in Wiradjuri, Yorta Yorta, Nari Nari and Wamba Wamba languages. "With the right amount of support, with community drive, the sky's the limit for Indigenous communities in terms of reawakening their languages," Ms Reed said. Like Ms Helms, Ngyiampaa woman Lesley Woods is committed to strengthening the Ngiyampaa dialect. She has a linguistics PhD on revitalising languages, and is completing an accessible Ngiyampaa dictionary, relying heavily on old recordings and documentation. "My goal is to get as much spoken language out there from those old recordings, so people can hear the language," Dr Woods said. Dr Woods said individual efforts to learn language, like Ms Helms is doing, were an important means to reconnect with culture and country. "Whatever people can do and in whatever way they want to do it is brilliant and to be applauded," she said. "Undertaking to learn a language … is a lot of hard work." She's hopeful these efforts mean that one day, Ngiyampaa will join the list of languages being learnt back into fluency. "That blows my mind, that you can go from just having a few old speakers to lots of people learning to speak again," Dr Woods said.
ABC News
12-07-2025
- General
- ABC News
Native American fluency model reaches Central Australia in fight to save languages
A cross-continental partnership that could help to revive dozens of Australia's most endangered First Nations languages is taking root on Arrernte country. In a modest classroom at the Desert Peoples Centre in Alice Springs, Native American language educators from Washington State are sharing a method they say can do what once seemed impossible: create fluent speakers of endangered languages within a single year. The Fluency Transfer System (FTS) was developed by the Salish School of Spokane, an Indigenous immersion school that teaches preschool through to year 8 entirely in the Salish language. Last month the team behind that system landed in Mparntwe (Alice Springs) to share the blueprint with more than 45 Aboriginal language groups from across the country. Among the group is workshop organiser Vanessa Farrelly, the coordinator of the Pertame Language Nest, a preschool-style immersion program aiming to raise a generation of fluent speakers. She says the FTS is set apart by its track record. "It's like a road map to take someone who knows no language – a complete beginner – to being an advanced, fluent speaker," Ms Farrelly said. "And they've been able to do it reliably in just over a year." Ms Farrelly says her infant and toddler students will be the first generation in 50 years to be fluent in the language. "There are only about 20 speakers of Pertame left — they're all in the grandparent generation," she said. The FTS pairs confident speakers with learners and moves them through structured lessons given entirely in the target language. There is no translation, just repetition, body language and culturally embedded storytelling. For Salish School of Spokane executive director LaRae Wiley the approach is deeply personal. "I'd never heard my language growing up … [when] I turned about 35, I decided that I wanted to learn my language," she said. With only two fluent speakers of her language – Nsəlxcin – left in the United States, LaRae travelled to Canada with her husband Chris Parkin to live with a fluent elder and begin recording. They developed the FTS together and opened a school in her sister's basement. Fifteen years later the school has 48 students, including 23 intergenerational families and is the only three-generation Salish-speaking household in the US. "It's not just about language," Mr Parkin said. "It's about healing. It's about reclaiming identity, connecting with ancestors and rebuilding community. Grahm Wiley, Ms Wiley's son, teaches years 3 to 5 maths, science and reading entirely in Salish. His daughter is one of his students. "[My children] have a much better sense of self than I did when I was their age," Mr Wiley said. "When you're grounded in your culture … it allows you to go out into the world in a different way." The relationship between the Indigenous peoples of Central Australia and the Salish tribe started when a group of Pertame speakers, including Ms Farrelly, visited a Salish-led workshop in Montana. The two groups soon found they were deeply connected by shared histories of colonisation, dispossession and survival. "When we were presenting in Montana and they came to that workshop, we were flabbergasted," Mr Wiley said. "We were like, 'You came from where?'" Ms Farrelly said the Salish team's visit to Australia could not have been more timely. "It is critical that our Australian endangered language groups come together and look to Indigenous peoples globally to learn from the most successful pathways to grow new fluent speakers."
