The theme of 2017 NAIDOC Week is all about promoting Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander language, and the fight to preserve it for generations to come.
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It’s a noble cause, and a worthy message to attach to one of the most publicised week-long national events in modern Australia.
NAIDOC Week organisers and ambassadors talk of an Australia where its native people are dual-lingual and regularly practicing traditional aspects of their culture, while also successfully contributing greatly to modern society as healthy and educated Australian citizens.
We should always aspire to lay the path towards achieving health, education and employment parity, but expecting traditional language to blossom may be an unrealistic goal.
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A quick look back at recent and ancient history gives us a varying idea of how our ancestors lived, depending on the location, era and topic.
Recorded history understanding how indigenous Australians lived is vital, because the only thing more important than planning for the future, is learning from the past.
But while history is preserved, practices will always change.
One of the stark consistencies when flicking through the annals of time is the evolution of language.
With advances in technology comes adjustments in lifestyle, especially the way we communicate.
Old English is documented reasonably well, but modern society preferences the modern language.
It’s particularly noticeable when studying language over the past 200 years.
The Industrial Revolution and huge advances in communication technology means we all have a far greater access to information.
The universal languages of English, Mandarin, French and Spanish are the most widely-used global tongues, especially when it comes to popular culture.
So it should be no surprise the more sparsely used languages disappear for something far more accessible and widely used.
So expecting language to come back into vogue may be unrealistic.
But the merit in preserving the hundreds of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander languages, and documenting as much as we possibly can about our native Australian culture cannot be underestimated.