Towards an indigenous language knowledge base: tools and techniques from the Arwarbukarl community

Abstract

The Arwarbukarl Cultural Resources Association (ACRA)1 is a leading indigenous cultural representation and coordination body in the Hunter Valley region of New South Wales, Australia. A particular focus of ACRA is language revitalisation — made more difficult since only a smattering of documentary evidence of the language exists from the 1830s. In 2005, the number of individuals involved in learning the Arwarbukarl language was 20. While indigenous language documentation and revitalisation efforts are by no means unique to the Arwarbukarl context, this particular indigenous community has made significant progress in the development of software tools for language analysis. Here we briefly consider a number of the important aspects (technological, functional, cultural and social) that have contributed to the success of this project.