Aboriginal Languages

ceduna.yourguide: "More people will hopefully start speaking West Coast Aboriginal languages thanks to the brand new, high-tech language centre at the Ceduna Arts and Cultural Centre."

Parents want their children to learn the West Coast languages of Wirangu and Gugada even though students have been learning Pitjantjatjara for a long time. Makes sense , they are their languages and they need to be preserved but they also need access to one of the main aboriginal languages. It's fantastic to have this facility at Ceduna because it marks a step forward in accepting and validating things whcih are important to the oldest race on earth. It is a mark of respect. People need to preserve their cultural heritage ,they need to learn languages relevant to the governance of their country and they need to speak and learn languages which are going to add to them. People should be multilingual or bilingual. It keeps languages alive but it also develops sophisticated thinking and linguistic skills. I was staggered when I was in Vanuatu how I'd hear the locals changing from English to French to Bislama to a tribal language all in the space of 10 minutes. They just naturally spoke the most appropriate language to whomever they were speaking to. They would talk English to me, Bislama on the phone to the airport and then turn around to whoever was in hotel reception and talk their tribal language. That takes really high end cerebral skills. But it's great for tourists too. I was enjoying learning Bislama as I spent each day there and those of us who were tourisits were very enthusiastic about learning a language we could speak to the locals in. It was part of the pleasure of being somewhere different.

Ceduna is different. It gets very hot there but the people are very strong and adaptable. This year I heard they will be celebrating 200 years of football. This is some achievement and I am sure they will celebrate big time. I hope our big footie teams are all part of this too. Places like Ceduna got the ball rolling obviously!