They first started teaching Dhurga at Broulee Public School several years ago and now the local Aboriginal dialect has become a certificate III Language Course at Moruya TAFE.
The idea was the brainchild of Broulee Public School teacher Kerry Boyenga who specialises in Aboriginal education.
Kerry Boyenga is Brinja Djuwin woman and has been teaching at Broulee Public School for 10 years.
About five years ago she came up with the idea of teaching the local Aboriginal language in school.
Under the guidance of Broulee Public School principal, Jeff Ward along with the assistance of linguist Jutta Besold and teacher Waine Donovan three years of research ensued and the resurrection of Dhurga began.
The Dhurga language has been taught at Broulee school for two years.
In July 2007 the Cobowra Local Aboriginal Land Council (LALC) were successful in gaining government funding to assist with the revival and maintenance of Australian Indigenous Languages and less than one year later 18 students at Moruya TAFE have completed Certificate I of the Aboriginal Language Course, Dhurga Buradja which translates to ‘speaking our language tomorrow’.
Dhurga is one of four dialects used by the Yuin people and with the support of Broulee Public School, Illawarra TAFE and Cobowra LALC the ancient language is now being reclaimed.
Although similar language programs have been run throughout the state Moruya TAFE is one of the first to offer the Aboriginal Language program as a certificate course and last Thursday at Moruya Golf Club the people who contributed to the success of the course were recognised for their efforts at the launch of the Dhurga Buradja book and resource kit.
The package is designed to assist the students in further sharing the language within the community.
Under the guidance of Moruya TAFE course coordinator, Iris White the eight week course was developed.
Originally Iris was one of the students enrolled in the course, but ended up being the only student to not complete it.
“I was really wrapt to be a part of the course and when I had the opportunity to learn the language I jumped at it,” she said.
The demands of Iris’s life prevented her from completing the first unit but her commitment to see the course come to fruition was completely rewarding.
“Leaning a language is such an emotional journey.
“Unfortunately I will never speak it fluently, which is a shame,” she said.
Prior to presenting the students with their resource kit Cobowra (LALC) CEO Danny Chapman said, “It’s more than a book it’s a resource.”
Danny Chapman said after he’d thanked Cultural Heritage and project manager, Karen Lee and sites officer Michelle Mongta for putting the project together.
The course is nationally accredited and project manager Karen Lee said ‘it exceeded all the project performance indicators’.
One of the course teachers Waine Donovan said, “We have loved doing this, this is what we do, this is our job, this is our community and we are proud of what we do.”
Cobowra chairperson, Patricia Ellis said, “It’s been an inspirational journey.”
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“The success of the project can’t be attributed to just one element, it’s been the coming together of the Cobowra LALC, Illawarra TAFE, Broulee Primary School teachers, a number of Aboriginal communities and supported by aboriginal elders and knowledge holders.”
Author, Aunty Mary Duroux and Cobowra cultural advisor Dave Tout were at the launch.
Patricia Ellis went on to say, “It’s not the beginning we’ve planted a seed.”
“With that part of the project finished, the journey for our language has only just begun”.
How many Aboriginal languages remain?
The term “extinction” is no longer used among linguists because there are now techniques to revive languages.
Similarly, referring to an Aboriginal language as a ‘dead’ language is not acceptable for the same reason as it is 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 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 per cent of languages were healthy, 28 per cent were at high risk and 64 per cent 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
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.
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