Introduction

Aboriginal language is a fundamental expression of the longest continuous living culture in the world. For Aboriginal people, their language is critical to maintaining, strengthening and asserting Aboriginal cultural identity. Before 1788, there were more than 70 Aboriginal languages that were spoken across New South Wales. Today, most Aboriginal languages in New South Wales do not have enough speakers to function properly and only ten languages are being significantly revitalised...

Table 1: Recorded languages in NSW
(source: Organisation for anthropological research, resources and documentation on the Aborigines of Australia AusAnthrop Website)

How many Aboriginal languages remain?

The term “extinction” or "dead" language is no longer used among linguists because there are now techniques to revive languages. They are offensive to Aboriginal people. We refer to language less regularly used as ‘sleeping’ language, as they are capable of being revived. There are languages that are deemed to be at a very high risk of loss without intervention by the community with the help of linguists and teachers (and other experts) because there are few speakers remaining or the language only survives as written recordings. There are languages that are at high risk of loss because the community use of language is rapidly declining. Then there are languages that are healthy, dynamic and evolving because they are being spoken within communities and taught in the education system.
A national estimate of the state of Aboriginal languages found that about 8% of languages were healthy, 28% were at high risk and 64% were at very high risk of loss (or had been lost). All languages in NSW fall in the very high risk of loss category without community intervention and help from language experts. Today of the 70 plus NSW languages, there are only ten Aboriginal languages that are “healthy” enough to be taught in our schools [See Table 3.3]. Only four have enough speakers to record the language and there is significant revitalisation and education activity in six other languages. All other NSW languages need substantial work by communities in partnership with language professionals to revitalise them.

How many people speak each language in New South Wales?

In the 2001 Census, the Australian Bureau of Statistics asked whether the occupants spoke “an Australian Indigenous language at home”. The results found that nationally about one in eight Indigenous persons (12%) reported that they spoke an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Island (Australian Indigenous) language at home. For NSW, only 0.7% of Aboriginal persons said they spoke an Indigenous language at home [see to Table 3.2].

Australia wide, Aboriginal people living in geographically remote areas were much more likely to report using a community language. About 55% of Indigenous persons living in very remote areas reported that they spoke an Indigenous language, compared with 1% of those in major cities and inner regional areas [See to Table 3.1].

Table 3.1: Aboriginal Languages statistics (Australia) (source: The Australian Bureau of Statistics website)

Table 3.2 Aboriginal languages in NSW: (The Australian Bureau of Statistics website)

Table 3.3 Report on school based Aboriginal language program activity in NSW during 2006(source : The NSW Office of the Board of Studies & Department of Education and Training )

Disclaimer :
[1][1] The definition of speaker is problematic. There is a difference between people who ‘speak,’ ‘use’ or ‘identify’ with a language; also, there is a distinction between the levels of speaking, e.g., ‘fluent’, ‘partial’ or ‘semi-speakers.’ For this document, ABS census data only collects data for people who ‘use the language at home’.