Australia launches digital collection of rare aboriginal languages
Last Updated: Monday, September 8, 2008 | 5:16 PM ET
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A library in Sydney, Australia has launched a website that provides access to the earliest written records of rare aboriginal languages.
The Indigenous Australians website aims to digitize records of hundreds of disappearing languages.
The State Library of New South Wales aims to make records of the languages available to researchers and Aboriginal people across Australia.
Among the important early records are notes taken by the state's original British surveyors, who met and spoke with local people to name areas. Many of these surveyors kept vocabularies of the dozens of languages spoken along the coast from the area that is now Sydney.
Later, missionaries created vocabularies of many of these languages.
"What we're making available online is really just a glimpse of what we have," said indigenous services librarian Ronald Briggs.
"But it's the first time that we've been able to put those original handwritten documents written by early explorers, surveyors and missionaries that document aboriginal language."
The library also has original letters and manuscripts of stories by David Unaipon, a 19th-century indigenous rights advocate who was also Australia's first published Aboriginal writer.
He gathered traditional tales of his people in a volume called Legendary Tales of the Australian Aborigines.
In addition to records of local life gathered by British settlers, there are paintings of communities by Aboriginal artists such as Mickey of Ulladulla and Tommy McRae.
Many of the estimated 250 languages originally spoken in Australia have been lost over time.
Canada's First Nations languages are also under threat. A study by the Assembly of First Nations in 2001 found that the number of native peoples who still speak their mother tongue is in decline. Of 50 First Nations languages studied, only three were found to be flourishing.
With files from the Australian Broadcasting Corp.Share Tools
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