Dying Australian Indigenous Languages - Are Schools the Solution?

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In the next 50 to 100 years, it's predicted that between 50 and 90 percent of the 7,000 languages spoken worldwide would be extinct. Indigenous languages spoken by people all over the world are most at risk; one is lost every two weeks.

Australia has one of the highest rates of language extinction worldwide. Australian indigenous languages make up 9% of the critically endangered languages in the world but only make up 2% of all languages spoken worldwide.

There were once spoken more than 250 Indigenous languages and more than 750 dialects. Only 40 languages are still spoken today, according to some experts' estimates, and only 12 are taught to children.

Jacquie Hunter, a First Nations educator, has spent 17 years at One Arm Point Remote Community School in Ardiyooloon, in northwest Australia. She said that in their Bardi language, "kids know words, but not phrases." We "won't have any more fluent speakers around to teach us those whole phrases in our language," she predicts, in a few years. Indigenous communities across the country exhibit this pattern repeatedly.

The importance of this issue has long been acknowledged by linguists, and recently, policymakers have started to respond. The International Decade of Indigenous Languages at the United Nations officially begins this year, after the International Year of Indigenous Languages in 2019. It strives to mobilize stakeholders and resources for the preservation, revitalization, and promotion of indigenous languages. It also draws attention to the serious endangerment of indigenous languages.

Languages are under threat as a direct result of "colonialism and colonial activities that resulted in the annihilation of indigenous peoples, their cultures, and their languages," according to the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. These involved discriminatory and eviction policies. Globalization and the emergence of a small number of languages that are culturally dominant, like English, have made this situation worse. Indigenous Peoples speak more than 4,000 different languages throughout the world. Their extinction will result in a loss of varied world views, cultures, and language varieties. It's possible that vital relationships between Indigenous languages and cultural identities have been severed.

One of the biggest risks to indigenous languages worldwide is the absence of support for minority languages in the traditional educational system. According to research, people tend to speak their native language less the more mainstream education they receive.

School environments, however, can be rich and supportive of variety. In recent years, Australia has seen considerable promise in this area. All states are implementing pre-school through year 12 Aboriginal language programs; Western Australia and New South Wales are excellent examples. A survey conducted in 2022 of over 650 elementary school kids revealed that they preferred learning an indigenous language to learning other foreign languages.

Long before the advent of digital archives, linguists collaborated with community members to record Indigenous languages and provide teaching materials. The Bardi app is an excellent illustration.

Hopefully, increased awareness will result in more action. Preserving the language is a combined effort.