Indigenous gathering being held in Darwin this week

ABC NEWS (Australia)

One of the largest global Indigenous language conferences is on in Darwin this week. Pulleema, it's the only language and technology gathering developed by indigenous people for indigenous people and it attracts delegates from all over the world.

Transcript

00:00 The purpose of this conference is one, to bring everyone together and two, to shine

00:06 a spotlight on our languages, that they do matter and we need to have this attention

00:11 and it's urgent.

00:14 On a global scale, there's been over 7,000 languages globally and there's this statement

00:21 where people do say that every two weeks somewhere in the world a language does disappear.

00:28 The situation itself is also pretty, it's unique with our continent.

00:37 We're losing our languages at a high rate.

00:41 Why is that, Darren?

00:47 We're living in two worlds and our languages, our voice and that knowledge system within

00:55 those there is all connected to our country, our environment and to our people.

01:01 We're not in the position where we should be in looking after our country and it for

01:05 caring for us.

01:07 It's changing, we are moving forward, but our languages as a foundational component

01:14 of all of this need to be prioritised and put back in.

01:17 Our knowledge systems can't be transferred and delivered and understood and learnt from

01:22 within English.

01:23 It's just not possible there.

01:26 Empower the people to be at the forefront of this.

01:29 We need to be doing this and we are.

01:32 We are not stopping.

01:34 We are doing everything we can in all sorts of ways there.

01:38 The diversity of what people do and how they respond to this, whether it's documentation,

01:45 whether it's through capturing and recording that knowledge through language, whether it's

01:50 delivering it through the education system, whether it's through schools, whether it's

01:55 through community, whether it's also out there in the wider space.

01:59 We all know that languages, the interest and the understanding and the respect for our

02:04 languages is growing every year.

02:07 We need to make sure that we don't want tokenistic labelling.

02:12 We want more.

02:13 We want our languages to be valued and strong and to be used every day by everyone within

02:19 our country.

02:21 They have this place.

02:26 With Australia, both North, Central and South America are very similar with what's happening.

02:36 These three continents, if we can call them that, I don't know geography that well, but

02:42 we are suffering the most loss of all.

02:48 What we do have is that we have lessons to be learned amongst one another and we're coming

02:53 together to share those lessons.

02:57 Everyone's plan on how we respond has got to be unique.

03:02 You can't put a blanket over this and just say, "Look, this is the one thing we need to

03:05 do."

03:07 We understand that there's differences and we have to respond differently.

03:11 We've got to be understandable in that that response can actually change on a daily, weekly

03:16 or yearly basis as well.

03:18 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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