Saving threatened Indigenous languages across Australia will take more than $ 9 million and a two year program, according to Dr Rachel Nordlinger from the School of Language and Linguistics at the University of Melbourne.

Dr Nordlinger’s comments come in response to the Federal Government’s funding announcement of $ 9 million for a two-year program aimed at saving threatened Indigenous languages still spoken in Australia.

“This funding will enable us to do some work towards recording these languages; but the funding should represent a preliminary step towards a long-term commitment if we really want to make a positive impact,” she says.

Dr Nordlinger says it is important to save indigenous languages because they are a vehicle through which cultural traditions, songs and knowledge about the natural world are conveyed. She says teaching these languages in some schools is also important for the benefit of children who live in communities where English is their second language.

“To put such children into an English only class is detrimental to their education, as research shows that children do better if they are first introduced to concepts like literacy and numeracy in their mother tongue, before this information is translated,” she says. 

“Saving these languages is a case of educational rights for these children.”