Do you know what -pilly means or how to say hello or goodbye? Knowing our local Yuggera, Jaggera and Turrbal languages will give you a sense of connection, home and belonging.
4ZZZ’s Eliot Rifkin chatted with Desmond Crump the Indigenous Languages Coordinator from the State Library Queensland and hopefully he’ll whet your interest in what our place names mean.
Here’s heaps of resources to visit for a really deep dive…
State Library of Queensland (SLQ) Indigenous languages map of Queensland,
International Year of Indigenous Languages and their exhibition -
Spoken: Celebrating Queensland languages as well as it’s virtual tour version
To get more immersed in the languages… here’s a toolkit and some vocabulary lists to download
Here’s SLQ’s Jarjum Stories exhibition celebrating classic and contemporary children stories as well as talks, story times, other events and upcoming exhibitions like Old Words, New Ways
Watch the full day program that was held at SLQ in February 2020 called Minya Birran: What now for Indigenous Languages? for all creatives, educators and community workers to discuss the future of Indigenous language and its place as a human right, while gaining skills and tools to incorporate Indigenous language into their craft.
SLQ’s NAIDOC week 2020 blog is also chock full of Indigenous language information and some more words on ‘Place’ names.
Kylie Farmer held a TED Talk called ‘Keep our languages alive’
…and some other websites that may be of interest…
- Yugambeh Museum, Language and Heritage Research Centre in Beenleigh
- AIATSIS [Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies] in Canberra
- First Languages Australia
visit Indigenous Knowledge Centres to get involved in the work they are doing in communities to support language and cultural heritage
and finally, here the various Indigenous Language Centres working towards language revival.
- Brisbane and South-East Queensland languages: Yugambeh Museum, Language and Heritage Research Centre serves as the Indigenous Language Centre for Southern Queensland.
- Central Queensland languages: Central Queensland Language Centre serves as the Indigenous Language Centre for Central and Central-Western Queensland.
- North Queensland languages: North Queensland Regional Aboriginal Corporation Language Centre serves as the Indigenous Language Centre for North Queensland.
- Cape York languages: Pama Language Centre serves as the Indigenous Language Centre for Cape York.
- Torres Strait Islander languages: Torres Strait Traditional Languages Centre has been established on Thursday Island.
Help keep Indigenous languages alive!