Languages: Keeping culture alive

Across the remote communities of the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) and Maralinga Tjarutja (MT) Lands, an intergenerational cultural transmission project is under way to save languages and stories from dying out.

Elders and parents are passing on traditional children’s ‘inma’ (loosely translated as stories sung and danced) to restore and revitalise language used by young people.

Their efforts were recently featured in the Closing the Gap: Prime Minister’s Report 2013.

“By teaching the inma, the Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara communities are saving their stories and their language from extinction,” said Lee-Ann Buckskin from Carclew Youth Arts, who are working with communities on the Tjitji Tjuta Inmaku Pakantjaku project.

“Inma are elaborate. They involve the story, the language, the dance, the body paint and all the associated ceremonies,” she said.

The stories will be published to create language teaching and literacy materials for the people of the APY Lands and other Anangu communities in South Australia.

This work is making a valuable contribution to Closing the Gap, as the ability to speak words and phrases in Indigenous language is a source of strength, resilience and pride. Connections to languages and culture are also fundamental to Indigenous health and wellbeing.

The Tjitji Tjuta Inmaku Pakantjaku project, which received Australian Government Indigenous Languages Support (ILS) and Indigenous Culture Support (ICS) funding, has the support of 11 communities and involves 55 elders, 500 children, community schools, the state government education system and the South Australian Mobile Language Team.

The partnerships provide a strong foundation on which to build successful language and culture projects while increasing opportunities for young Anangu to develop their skills and strengthen their connections to languages and culture.

Significant outcomes of the project include increased language use among younger generations; the transmission of traditional children’s stories which elders believed were nearly lost; the employment of young people and elders; and digital media skills for young people.

Students were mentored by a professional crew capturing performances during one of the many community culture camps. The students developed skills in film, photography and translation, while witnessing cultural stories being performed and passed on across generations.

The partnership with the South Australian Mobile Language Team allows students to gain language worker qualifications through the TAFE SA Certificate III Learning an Endangered Aboriginal Language, and offers a pathway to employment.

The literacy materials, which include booklets, posters and audio-visual products, are designed to help keep the Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara languages alive.

These materials are designed to support the continued revitalisation of Pitjantjatjara, which had a 31 per cent increase in speaker numbers between the 2006 and 2011 Census counts, and to help counteract the erosion of the endangered Yankunytjatjara language.