"Of the world’s 7,000 languages, it is estimated 50% to 90% will no longer be spoken in the next 50 to 100 years. The majority under threat are languages spoken by Indigenous peoples around the world: one is lost every two weeks.

One of the world’s fastest rates of language loss is in Australia. Indigenous languages in Australia comprise only 2% of languages spoken in the world but represent 9% of the world’s critically endangered languages.

More than 250 Indigenous languages and over 750 dialects were originally spoken. However, as some experts estimate, only 40 languages are still spoken, with just 12 being learned by children.

First Nations educator Jacquie Hunter, who contributed to this article, has worked at One Arm Point Remote Community School in Ardiyooloon in Australia’s northwest for 17 years. She told us “kids know words, but not sentences” of their Bardi language. She estimates within the next few years, “we won’t have any more fluent speakers around to teach us those full sentences in our language”."

The questions are whether these languages can be saved, and is it actually worth the effort.

The history of our indigenous people is a sad one.
They were forbidden to speak their own languages
for so long. It's no wonder that they have, and
are dying. We have advanced in this country where
today many languages are spoken and the "speak
English" on buses, train, and trams, is not longer
as prevalent. Our children today learn all sorts of
languages as well as English.

Of course it is worth learning an indigenous language.
It will teach students about our shared history.
It will teach something about our original Australian
culture and worldview. It will allow and encourage
students to develop respect for diversity and for
understanding of cultural difference.

It will bridge the gap from both sides. It will also
empower Aboriginal people because students will begin to
see things from the original Australian cultural
perspective.

Definitely worth the effort.

In a country where young people are barely literate in the only official language, English, talk of keeping or reviving Stone Age languages that weren't even written down is complete BS, and just another political ploy of the lunatic left. There is no place for such nonsense. All efforts should be made to ensure that people are competent in English - including those people in remote communities who will be doomed to stay isolated because they can communicate only in some ancient, unwritten language that 97% of the population do not understand, and do not care about.

I suspect at best the indigenous Australian will end up with a version of Australian pidgin. I lived in the NT for a few years in the 60s and watched the changes taking place. I did spend some time in TPNG as well where Pidgin was the common language. Over the years I have lived in a few locations with reasonably large Indigenous populations and have observed the changes up to where we are now. What next and where the solutions lie is but a guess as nothing to date has appeared to be successful in the long term not only in language but in virtually all aspects of common ground. Time may be the only true solution and large lumps of it. We are still a young country with an evolving history and a high level of immigration which will make for changes as yet unknown. It will be a very different Australia to what we know now. SD

The only way that Aboriginal languages will survive is if native speakers pass the language on to the children and if Aboriginals who don’t have a language, learn and speak speak one.

There is no good reason why the most numerous Indigenous language shouldn’t be a school subject and learning a language, no matter which one, the intellectual benefits are the same, the practical benefits can be different, French is always going to be of more practical use than, say, Lallans or the similar Doric.

My wife is fluent in the Maori language, a speaker, a teacher and a writer of language. When she started school (a rural school with 95% Maori children) in the 1950's with little to no English, pakeha teachers tried to prevent Maori children speaking the native language, smacking was what they employed as a deterrent. Even names were changed, on her first day an English name was pinned on her, and she was told; "that is your new name from now on". Today my wife has two names, her English name, and her real Maori name.

Today things are different in NZ, all children are taught "te reo Maori" in schools. The language is doing fine, with many speakers including young people. Its great that the wife and niece can use modern technology 'FaceTime', and chat to each other in their "stone age" language.