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In Australia, there were hundreds, perhaps thousands, of languages. Until English arrived.
Rudi Bremer and Karina Lester talk about the destruction and revival of indigenous Australian languages.
Content note: this episode refers to violence and genocide.
EXTRA MATERIALS:
AIATSIS map to show the language, social or nation groups of Aboriginal Australia.
Karina Lester was on BBC World Service’s Witness to recount the campaign by indigenous Australian women against the government’s nuclear waste plans.
Gina Williams sings in Noongar, a language from Western Australia with a few hundred speakers.
The Living Language Platform is trying to save First Nations languages.
Australia Post just agreed to include First Nations place names in addresses.
This is part of the ongoing Survival collection of episodes. Previous ones include Second Home about Welsh in Patagonia; Oot in the Open, about the suppression and revival of Scots; and Bequest, about queer language in Māori. And the pair of Key episodes are about language extinction and preservation.
Also: I did a short series of talks with podcasters for Scripps College, which I think you’ll enjoy. The first is with Lory Martinez and James Kim, talking about making multilingual fiction and immigrant stories in their podcasts Mija and Moonface. The second is with Phoebe Unter and Ariel Mejia about radical truth-telling on podcasts including The Heart and Bitchface. Hear them on Spotify, where there’ll soon also be an Allusionist one about the future of language.
YOUR RANDOMLY SELECTED WORD FROM THE DICTIONARY:
haplology
haplology, noun: the omission of one occurrence of a sound or syllable which is repeated within a word (eg. in February pronounced ‘/’fɛbri/’).
CREDITS:
Rudi Bremer is a radio broadcaster and producer with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Her work includes Radio National’s Awaye! featuring Aboriginal arts and culture across Australia; Word Up, capturing words from Indigenous languages; Little Yarns, an award-winning show for kids and parents to learn about Australia’s many indigenous languages; and Thin Black Line, an investigation into the death of an Aboriginal teenager in police custody. All these shows are available in the podcast apps, and you can find Rudi on Twitter and Instagram @rudi_bee.
Karina Lester is a linguist at the University of Adelaide, and co-manager and senior Aboriginal language worker of the university’s Mobile Language Team. Find out more about the team’s work with communities to maintain languages and culture at mobilelanguageteam.com.au.
This episode was produced by me, Helen Zaltzman, with help from Ian Steadman and Rudi Bremer.
The original Allusionist music is by Martin Austwick. Download his songs at palebirdmusic.com and hear more of his composition on the new science podcast for kids Maddie’s Sound Explorers.
Find the show at twitter.com/allusionistshow, facebook.com/allusionistshow, twitter.com/helenzaltzman and instagram.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist has left the Radiotopia network, and if you’re able and inclined to support the show, head over to patreon.com/allusionist.
