In its Wesnesday November 3rd edition, this new-caledonian newspaper devoted a long article to the state of Aboriginal languages in Australia. There are only about 20 of them left, as compared to several hundreds at the time when the first Europeans arrived, 200 years ago. And that includes some which are clearly at risk of dying out, with only a few hundred or dozen speakers.

Yet, a few decades ago, multilinguism was common among Aboriginals, as many could speak several of their languages. But the policy of forced assimilation pursued until the 1960’s, with children being banned from speaking their mother tongue in schools and religious missions, got the better of this rich linguistic pratice.

The newspaper mentions efforts made in different states (Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia etc.) to revitalize Aboriginal languages. Here and there teaching and transmission initiatives are developed. Some languages which were considered dead are revived thanks to the combined efforts of communities and linguists, who enrich traditional vocabulary with contemporary words. A new program has been implemented at the University of Sydney, in order to train around 20 Aboriginal women to become teachers of their own languages in schools of their region.

Those are significant efforts, but deemed to be insufficient given the magnitude of the task and the fact that the country’s 400,000 Aboriginals are more worried about surviving one day at a time than saving their cultures.

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