School of Languages and Linguistics - Research Publications

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Start date: 1988 × Author: Thieberger, Nicholas × Author: McConvell, Patrick ×

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    State of Indigenous languages in Australia - 2001, Australia State of the Environment Second Technical Paper Series (Natural and Cultural Heritage), Department of the Environment and Heritage, Canberra
    McConvell, P ; Thieberger, N ( 2001)
    This paper provides data for, or information about, nine environmental indicators related to the condition of Indigenous languages in Australia, being a contribution towards the 2001 national State of the Environment Report. The indicators address the following key issues about the state of Indigenous languages in Australia: * condition of Indigenous languages, * state of documentation of languages, * the wider use of Indigenous languages, * funding, research and education.The study found that in 1996: * there has been a decrease in the percentage of Indigenous people speaking Indigenous languages from 100% in 1800 to 13% in 1996, * there are about 55,000 speakers of Indigenous languages in Australia, * the number of Indigenous languages, and the percentage of people speaking these languages have continued to fall in the period 1986-1996, accelerating over the ten years, and * of the 20 languages categorised in 1990 as 'strong', 3 should now be regarded as 'endangered'.The paper comments on the usefulness of the indicators and makes recommendations to improve either the indicators or the source data collections.
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    Language data assessment at the national level: learning from the State of the Environment process in Australia
    McConvell, P ; Thieberger, N (Foundation for Endangered Languages, 2003)
    Language maintenance is necessarily grounded in communities and has a local focus. Federal government policy has a national and international focus, yet it is the source of funding for most Australian indigenous language (IL) work, through ATSIC. The nearest approach to a national assessment of the number of languages and their needs has come through a perhaps unexpected source, an initiative of the federal department responsible for the environment, Environment Australia. Every five years this department mounts an evaluation of aspects of the physical and cultural environment, called the 'State of the Environment'. In 1997 it proposed a set of indicators for assessing the state of indigenous languages and in 2001 these indicators were implemented in the State of Indigenous Languages (SOIL) report. Among the indicators are those which measure the level of endangerment of languages. This necessitated building an improved listing of languages and consideration of how census data can be used to extract endangerment measures. Especially given the minimal questions on language in the Australian census and issues surrounding the meaning of the responses, these measures benefit from cross-checking against local studies where they exist. This paper presents some of the most recently available census data from 2001 and compares it, where possible, with local and regional studies.