Aboriginal languages

Around 490 Indigenous languages were spoken in Australia 200 years ago. While only a dozen or so of these languages are still being learned by children as their first language, Indigenous communities all around Australia have strong connections to language, with many of them working to revitalise their ancestral languages. Though these languages are incredibly diverse, there are certain hallmarks of Aboriginal languages that most of them shared, including similar phonologies, cognate words, and recurrent patterns of meaning.

In this unit, you will consider the features often considered typical of Australian Aboriginal languages, and will explore how/whether these can be related to features of the local cultures. This includes a consideration of the relationship between language and country, kinship and the sociocultural contexts of language use. We will also consider the many points of variation. Our focus on traditional forms of these languages will be balanced by an examination of the roles Aboriginal languages play in Australia today, including emergent languages (such as mixed languages and creoles), multilingualism, language policy, sociolinguistics and the role of linguistics in language maintenance and revitalization.