BY FELICITY MEAKINS
Indigenous languages and the stolen generations were another casualty of the 2002-03 federal budget. The $7.2 million previously allocated to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) for preserving and maintaining Indigenous languages was almost halved under the new federal budget.
ATSIC invests around $4.2 million annually in the preservation and revitalisation of Indigenous languages. During the last three years, it has received an extra $9 million to help reunite members of the stolen generations with their Indigenous languages.
This Language Access Initiative Program (LAIP) funding will be discontinued under the 2002-03 federal budget. These funds have most benefited regional aboriginal language centres. These centres set up and run language programs to help record and maintain Indigenous languages, responding to the rapid decline in the number of Indigenous languages spoken in Australia.
The centres produce language materials such as books, videos and CD-ROMs to help Indigenous communities teach children and stolen generation victims their traditional languages.
A recent report from Environment Australia shows that the number of Indigenous languages and the percentage of people speaking these languages continued to fall in the 1986-96 period, accelerating over the 10 years. Of the hundreds of languages spoken in Australia before the European invasion, only 17 remain spoken commonly. If these trends continue, most of these will no longer be spoken in 50 years.
Because its language is linked to a community's sense of identity, the loss of Indigenous languages has damaged the cohesiveness of many Indigenous communities, and has been associated with social problems such as substance abuse.
The rapid decline of languages has been stemmed somewhat by the LAIP programs and language centres. In the Northern Territory, LAIP funds are used in conjunction with money from the territory education department to run language programs in schools. Linguists produce language materials in these programs, and train members of the Indigenous community to teach primary and high school children their languages.
In the Katherine region alone, 10 community schools benefit from language programs run by linguists and community language workers from Diwurruwurru-Jaru Aboriginal Corporation (Katherine Regional Aboriginal Language Centre), a language centre which covers around 30 languages.
These language programs have already been greatly eroded by the 1999 decision by the NT government to dismantle bilingual programs in schools.
From Green Left Weekly, June 5, 2002.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.