Aboriginal And Torres Strait Islander Languages

There were three main languages which also consisted of various dialects. Darug was the largest spoken language. The Gadigal people spoke a dialect of Darug. Dharawal was another language spoken which also consists of various dialects based on regions. Many Indigenous Australians could speak more than one of these languages as Central Sydney was where many tribes would come together, so it was quite common that many tribes or clans would be in this same area at the same time, allowing them to learn the languages of each others tribes.

The forceful removal of children from families, relocation of tribes from their native homelands, and the attempted assimilation by the Europeans resulted in the disruption of the hundreds of years of knowledge and heritage being passed down through generations. These issues have resulted in the destruction of most of their thousand year old languages and background. To the Indigenous people of Australia, language is the key to their cultural and spiritual identity, and their heritage. From over 250 languages being spoken all over Australia, there are now only 145. Only 20 of which are considered still going strong; this is a cause of great distress to the Indigenous people. “The loss of indigenous languages signifies not only the loss of traditional knowledge but also the loss of cultural diversity and spirituality as well as laws and customs” (Gugu Badhun Limited, 2012). Language is their identity, their connection to the community, it retains their cultural and spiritual identity throughout their daily lives now (Gugu Badhun Limited,

There is great diversity among different Indigenous communities and societies in Australia, each with its own unique mixture of cultures, customs and languages. In present-day Australia these groups are further divided into local communities. At the time of initial European settlement, over 250 languages were spoken; it is currently estimated that 120 to 145 of these remain in use, and all but 13 are considered to be endangered. Aboriginal people today mostly speak English, with Aboriginal phrases and words being added to create Australian Aboriginal English (which also has a tangible influence of Indigenous languages in the phonology and grammatical structure).

Australia’s aborigines are one of the oldest ongoing cultures in the world. Their traditions date back up tens of thousands of years. Before European settlement, there were around 600 different aboriginal nations, based on language groups. Southport was part of the territory of the Indigenous people of the Yugambeh language group. Their land stretched south from Beenleigh along the coast to the tweed and inland to the mountains. The language group was composed of a number of subgroups including the Kombumerri saltwater indigenous people of the Gold Coast.

The teaching resource selected to support diverse literacy and language learning in a grade one classroom is a children’s book ‘I’m Australian Too’ written by Mem Fox and illustrated by Ronojoy Ghosh (Fox, M. (2017) ‘I’m Australian Too’ Australia; Scholastic Australia). The book is available for purchase both online and at ‘Readings’ stores in Hawthorn, Carlton, Malvern and St Kilda for $19.99. It can also be accessed as an audio copy from http://memfox.com/books/im-australian-too/. The book details all the multiple cultural identities that can be found across Australia. It poetically details that no matter where our families come from, or the hardships that may have faced, we can all find a home in Australia. The resource is useful in

Aboriginal societies were admired for their sense of belonging; everybody in their language group was their family. Everybody helped in the raising, care and discipline of children in the group (Bourke and Edwards, 1994. p.97).

It is vital for teachers to recognise indigenous literacies and aboriginal English in all classrooms as it builds a sense of equality and a non-discriminating environment. As a future teacher I believe that it is my role to create a classroom that mirrors these key factors, as it will build the foundations for a nourishing learning environment. This type of learning environment will aid in linking the students parents and the surrounding community together that encourages an equal society.

Aboriginal individuals, only 15 percent could speak their native language well or relatively well (Adelson, 2005). This led to the development of a negative perception among Aboriginal children, which has been passed on to future generations and led to an inability of adults to promote the value of education to children.

Overtime, the quality of education for Aboriginal and Torres trait islanders has seen much improvement, though there is yet a stagnant gap evident within the English language and literacy performances of students coming the Indigenous culture when compared to Australian students. This is supported by Dr Wendy Hanlen who asks “why do Indigenous students born in this country, many of whom speak English, generally, do not have successful literacy outcomes?” (Hanlen, 2002).

‘Australia’ also showed how the government controlled how children of Aboriginal descent were brought up with language used such as “The mixed raced children must be dislocated from their primitive full blooded Aborigine, how else are we to breed the black out of them”. This presented again the reason as to why the Aboriginal children were taken away from their own cultures to be raised in something completely different.

In Aboriginal culture the language isn’t only a form of communication, it is used to mark territory. It is possible that people from tribe only fifty kilometres away cannot understand the other tribes language at all.

There are a wide range of resources available in the state of Victoria for teachers to use when implementing strategies for working with Indigenous children. A local resource that could be used in my future classroom to promote effective strategies when including the traditional Aboriginal languages is the Aboriginal Languages and Cultures Victoria website that has a booklet that can be used in conjunction with the Elders of the community to help educators become familiar with the dialects of the Western Kulin, Western Victoria nation (Blake, 2011). An example of one of the pages has been included in the appendix (see appendix one). Furthermore, I would collaborate with the students, families and community to best address their needs. This

Often children, because they integrate into a more popular language. They do this for an economic advantage.

Despite Australia’s ever-growing multiculturalism, it has been found that ‘monolingualism is extraordinarily common in Australia throughout the general population and all occupational levels (Bostock, 1973).’ With such an array of cultures present, one would assume that Australian education systems would have endless bilingual programs in place. However, this is not the case. Despite the successes of bilingual education on a global scale, little effort has been made to preserve any Australian languages, meaning that language death has become an everyday factor that Indigenous individuals have to deal with (Wurm, 1991). This paper discusses the concept of bilingual education and its faults in the transition from theory to

Brownlow (2005) states that “colonisation, imperialism and population migration have always lead to the demise of languages” (para. 2), and this ‘rule of thumb’ is no different in New Zealand. In the early 1900s te reo Māori (the Māori language) was, by and large, the sole language spoken by the Māori population, yet by the 1930s many Māori were bilingual. (Higgins & Keane, 2014). Higgins & Keane (2014) attribute this to the negative societal attitude toward speaking te reo Māori in schools -that eventually spilled into home environments- and the fact that many Europeans advocated for monolingualism. As a result of years of this abuse, te reo Māori was threatened with extinction. (Spolsky, 2003). The 1970s and 1980s were decades where many