The Queensland Government has committed $685,000 to continue special education, language and cultural programs at the Cape York Aboriginal Australian Academy.

The programs will serve the dual purposes of preserving local dialects and improving educational outcomes in general.

“By studying their own culture and history, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students feel a greater sense of belonging at school and this leads to improved performance rates,” a government spokesman said.

Namalata is a Queensland Aboriginal word meaning “messenger” and Thusi is a western Torres Strait Islander word meaning “paper” or “book”.

An Indigenous languages project in NSW has unearthed an early European recording of words from Queensland’s Torres Strait.

Dr Michael Walsh said the recording was significant because it was made during the very early days of British contact with the area, and decades before most other records.

“In terms of northern Australia particularly, recordings generally start in the mid-19th century,” he said. “(However,) this recording was made by Robert Brown, the botanist who accompanied Matthew Flinders on his around-Australia trip. In 1803 or ’02, they got to Torres Strait, which is where this comes from.”

While the Brown recording isn’t very large, it is significant because it captures words spoken by Torres Strait Islanders before their languages were influenced by European languages.

Dr Walsh is the researcher on the State Library of NSW’s Indigenous languages project, sponsored by Rio Tinto. It aims to recover snippets of lost Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages.

It will have three phases – discovering what lies in the library archives; consulting Indigenous communities and making the words available online; and developing new education programs that teach the forgotten words in primary and high schools.

About 250 languages were spoken across Australia at the time of European settlement. Only a handful remains in use; most are extinct or are in danger of disappearing.

Ironically, some of the best surviving records of these languages were made by early British settlers. The library has something like 12 linear kilometres of their manuscripts and has opened them to Dr Walsh and his year-long research.

“It’s a real grab-bag,” he said. “There’s an enormous amount of material to search. Sometimes, it (will be) a little letter or note poked into somewhere it shouldn’t be.”

Dr Walsh estimates the manuscripts will reveal a good amount of language from NSW and Victoria, and probably from Tasmania as well. Queensland is likely to be less generously covered but there could still be significant finds.

“I’m only fairly early into this project (but) it’s clear there are records concerning Queensland,” he said. “While it’s the State Library of NSW, we have records from all over Australia.”

Some of the earliest Queensland recordings were made by Captain James Cook and his crew in 1770 when their ship stopped for maintenance at what is now Cooktown. They spent about six weeks interacting with the locals. Dr Walsh said the stay gave us one of the most widely known names – kangaroo.

“The modern word of kangaroo comes from northern Queensland, not NSW,” he said.

Dr Walsh has researched Indigenous languages for 40 years and has noticed a growing interest in them. He says language recovery has taken off in Queensland over the last three or four years.

Places are limited so email Michele – mcpeile@gmail.com -  if you are interested

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Flyer: Bush Tucker

Nyoka Hatfield from the Dharumbal language program in Rockhampton gave an inspiring presentation on the rewards and challenges she faces in delivering a language program in schools in her area. Nyoka presented a copy of her book “Counting in the Malgadu”  to the Chair of the committee Mr. Shayne Neumann and Deputy Chair Dr. Sharman Stone.

To do this, the committee is collecting information about the number of people with a range of training, experience and skills and looking to find a way to link them with service users.

Each of our communities have people with skills that can contribute to Language programs. You may have people in your community who are skilled in story telling, translating, research, or are trained child care assistants or teacher aides. Perhaps you have linguists or language project workers in a local organisation.

If you, or anyone you know, would like to provide details of skills that you have and extra skills that you need in your Language programs you can download the audit form, Indigenous Languages Skills Audit (QILAC).

Participants will help us to find out where more skills are needed, where people with expertise can find employment, and where support can be given to developing career pathways for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the field of language maintenance, teaching and preservation.

The QSA has developed Queensland’s first syllabuses in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Languages for schools to start using from 2011. The syllabus has been developed so that students will be able to study the languages associated with their own communities and local areas at school.

QSA states “the syllabuses offer a bridge for bringing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and schools together”.

“While there are similar syllabuses in other States, Queensland’s are unique by putting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities at the front and centre of development and implementation.”

QILAC been in consultation with the QSA during the drafting of the syllabus and QILAC Members will continue to meet and consult with the QSA through its trail and implementation.

An important part of this consultation is around the key issues which will impact on the delivery of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander language programs in schools. These include:

• community approval and control of language programs,
• appropriate training for language teachers,
• pay scales and career pathways, and
• appropriate development of language resources for the programs.

QILAC member Leonora Adidi is on the Reference Group for the QSA. Faith Baisden is in the Critical Friends group for QSA.

For more information check the Queensland Studies Authority website.

QILAC members, Bridget Priman, Melinda Holden and Faith Baisden were among the Eastern States Aboriginal Languages Group delegation who met with the Governor General Her Excellency Quentin Bryce at Government House in Canberra

Members took the opportunity to 
spend nearly an hour with Her Excellency as she was keen to know as much as possible about 
the use of languages in the community, and the role of the Queensland committee and 
other state groups.

Her Excellency inquired about the strength of the languages and what work was
 being done to help make them continue to return to use. Members showed her a number of
 the resources that have been produced in Queensland and she showed a genuine delight
 and interest in their content.

We left Her Excellency with materials to share with other visitors
 and international guests.

The group was invited to visit again and to hold 
our next meeting at Government House.

The books will be published for use by community members Ingahm where teacher and teacher aid community members will use them in schools and community programs.

Well done to Bridget Priman and all those who have been working on the texts.

At the same time Bridgit has been working with Jedda Priman, Robert Paul and Black Ink to continue the Language multimedia project for children. More information about this project will be posted soon.