Aboriginal elders reject ‘another decade of discrimination’

The Ramingining elders have called for an end to the intervention, the reinstatement of bilingual education, the involvement of elders in curriculum development, and Yolngu teachers. Elders from the remote Northern Territory Aboriginal community of Ramingining, East Arnhem, released, on November 28, a statement, saying that they “...don’t want another decade of discrimination here in Ramingining,” said Mathew Dhulumburrk, a 67-year-old Gupapuyngu man. “The government is extending and strengthening laws designed to assimilate Aboriginal people. We will not sit back and watch these attacks on our lives, our future, our culture, and our law.

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New home movies resurrect endangered Native American language

University of Minnesota Duluth education professor Mary Hermes says saving an endangered language goes beyond just enriching the people who speak it. "I think people have got to get beyond thinking it's just for the Ojibwe people, that we want to save their Ojibwe language. There's 10,000 years of human evolution and knowledge in that language," she says. With support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), Hermes is combining the skills of native speakers with video technology to help others, young and old, learn the language in the most natural way. She's doing it by videotaping short movies of everyday situations, from going to a rummage sale to planting a garden to helping out a sick relative. "Because Ojibwe isn't spoken on a regular basis, there's not a store or a rummage sale or a resort, but part of what we're doing is trying to re-envision what that would be like," explains Hermes.

Thanks to Living Languages where I first read this :)

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Fight for Nyoongar language

A QUEENS Park-based Aboriginal group is fighting to preserve the Nyoongar language. The language appears in Western Australian culture, and is featured on street signs, place names and during Welcome to Country ceremonies. However, Nyoongar Language Program interim chairman Joe Collard said such references were not understood and the language was slowly dying out.“Names like Joondalup and Dwellingup – these are our place names that have wonderful histories,” he said. “So many place names across the South-West derive from Nyoongar words, which have associated stories. We could offer these stories to people.” Mr Collard said he was concerned with the low number of fluent Nyoongar language speakers.

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