Pod Insights All In The Mind ‘Should have been my birthright’ - the journey to reclaim a lost language About this episode Languages are so much more than words and sounds — they encode culture and shape our identity. So how do you connect to your culture, if language is lost?
While many Indigenous languages have already been lost, and more are at risk of extinction, in Australia, people are increasingly trying to revitalise certain Indigenous languages.
ABC Radio National presenter and Gamilaraay woman Rudi Bremer is on her own journey of reconnecting with her mother tongue, and it's bringing up a mixed bag of feelings — from a profound sense of loss, to deep contentment and belonging.
Guests:
Jade McHughes, PhD candidate and Ngarrindjeri woman
Trinity Clarke, Language worker and Kuku Yalanji woman
Credits:
Reporter/presenter: Rudi Bremer, Gamilaraay womanPresenter/producer: Sana QadarProducer: Kaylene Langford, Guringai womanProducer: Rose KerrSenior producer: James BullenYou can hear more from presenter Rudi Bremer on Word Up https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/wordup and Awaye! https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/awaye
To explore more great episodes from the award-winning psychology podcast All in the Mind with host Sana Qadar, download the ABC Listen app (Australia) or search 'ABC All in the Mind podcast' wherever you get your podcasts. There you'll find more episodes on mental health, trauma, attachment theory, wellness hacks, and family relationships. You'll also hear interviews with experts like Esther Perel, Billy Garvey and Ethan Kross. All in the Mind is created for ABC's Radio National by specialist journalists and reporters at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
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0:07 Speaker 01 From an Ipswich fish and chip shop to the epicentre of Australian politics.
0:12 Speaker 02 Please explain.
0:13 Speaker 03 Pauline Hudson is making it One Nation.
0:16 Speaker 01 This is the unlikely story of One Nation. Well, I'm back. Is it a passing protest vote or a permanent realignment of Australian politics?
0:24 Speaker 04 Whether you love her or hate her, truth is stranger than fiction.
0:29 Speaker 01 The Making of One Nation. To hear the full series, search for The Making of One Nation on ABC Listen.
0:37 Speaker 05 Since you've been learning, what is the prettiest or funniest word you've learnt?
0:42 Speaker 06 Oh, so my favourite word in my language is guna gala.
0:49 Speaker 05 What does that mean?
0:49 Speaker 06 It means sky.
0:51 Speaker 05 Oh.
0:51 Speaker 06 And the reason that I love it is because when you take the word apart, guna... Look, actually, guna does mean poo.
1:03 Speaker 05 What? I'm sorry.
1:05 Speaker 06 Not where you thought was going at.
1:06 Speaker 05 That's not where I thought this was going.
1:07 Speaker 06 Not where you thought. But like, so growing up, I knew that word for that reason.
1:11 Speaker 05 Okay.
1:12 Speaker 06 Because I knew like body functions and body parts kind of words.
1:18 Speaker 05 If you come from a non-English speaking background, I want to ask you, how well do you speak your mother tongue? Like, I speak conversational Urdu, which could definitely be better, but you know, it does the job well enough. And if I ever wanted to get better, there's an estimated 100 million people around the world that could talk to me or teach me. Or, here in Australia, an estimated 110,000 people who speak the language, according to the 2021 census. Urdu is not at risk of dying out anytime soon. But the same can't be said for many indigenous languages. The UN reports that 40% of the world's estimated 7,000 languages are in danger of disappearing.
2:01 Speaker 05 And the ones most at risk are indigenous languages. And that is a threat not just to the languages themselves, but the very cultures and knowledge systems to which they belong.
2:15 Speaker 05 Thankfully, here in Australia, the linguistic landscape is shifting because more and more people are getting involved in learning and teaching and revitalising their languages.
2:25 Speaker 06 But guna means poo, but it also, because there's a lot of dual meanings that exist within
2:30 Speaker 05 Okay.
2:31 Speaker 06 our languages, it also can mean like mysterious, dark, unknowing.
2:36 Speaker 05 I mean poo can also be mysterious and dark, but yeah.
2:39 Speaker 06 So, so guna, gull is a suffix that signifies place.
2:44 Speaker 05 Okay.
2:44 Speaker 06 And ah is a suffix that signifies like a multiplicity. So in its actual essence, guna gulla is a place of many mysteries.
2:53 Speaker 05 Wow.
2:54 Speaker 06 Or a place with lots of, lots of hidden things.
2:57 Speaker 05 That's gorgeous.
2:58 Speaker 06 And that's, isn't that beautiful?
3:00 Speaker 05 Rudy Bremmer is a Gamilaraay woman and she hosts and produces a couple of shows here on ABC Radio National. One of them being Word Up, which is all about Indigenous languages. Pokulba means happy. Working on that show got her thinking about the relationship between language and culture and belonging. And it got her thinking about her own language skills. Rudy is in the All in the Mind studio with me today. She's reporting today's episode. Hey Rudy.
3:27 Speaker 06 Hi Sana.
3:28 Speaker 05 So you've been hosting Word Up for nine years now. Um, are you basically an expert at Gamilaraay now?
3:35 Speaker 06 Not even close. Um, I probably speak as well as a toddler learning them.
3:41 Speaker 05 Oh, okay.
3:42 Speaker 06 Like learning a language or learning to speak, really.
3:45 Speaker 05 When did you start to learn?
3:47 Speaker 06 I started to learn in 2019 and I'd known a handful of words growing up, things that were largely to do with like body functions and body parts. But I didn't really know how to put a sentence together. So I had it in my head that
4:06 Speaker 06 I'm an adult now. I'm too old to be learning a language and it's too late for me to learn my own language. So I'd kind of shelved it, but the more that I spoke to people while doing Word Up, the more I really started to question that idea. So when I had the opportunity to go along to these classes, I jumped at it. But I had to take my mum along because I needed, I guess, backup.
4:33 Speaker 05 Did she know how to speak?
4:34 Speaker 06 Uh, no, I mean, like, I think she and I were probably at a similar level in terms of our vocabulary because what I know, I know from her. But what was really interesting is that in those initial classes, it became really clear that I understood the technical element of learning a language. And so I was picking things up because I had been speaking to linguists and to language workers for, for three years at that point. Whereas she was, for her, this was an opportunity to, to kind of reawaken and unearth knowledge that she had had from her childhood that had just kind of been buried.
5:29 Speaker 06 Using our voice is one of the most human things we can do.
5:35 Speaker 06 It's how we celebrate, how we mourn, how we govern and create social cohesion. Stifling an entire community's voice by restricting their ability to use their language can have a serious impact.
5:52 Speaker 07 Our voices are the verbal expression of our culture. Aboriginal languages are built on oral traditions.
6:00 Speaker 06 That's Jade McHughs. She's a Ngunnjeri Minmi from South Australia.
6:06 Speaker 07 It's not just words that go when our voices are silenced. It's whole cultural concepts. Think of the kinship terms and connections which are incredibly complex. If the languages are gone, there are so many words that you can't interpret into English and, and vice versa. That's only one aspect and it's how we see the world. It's how we describe our world. It's how we know our world. So where I grew up in Gua, we are like, we are the end of the River Murray where it comes out. Morundi comes out, um, through the Murray mouth and out into the Southern Ocean, into the Ayalawa. And.
6:52 Speaker 07 It's beautiful. Kuchidi, like, kuchidi is good, like, good-looking but beautiful. But we are incredibly fortunate because we have the Yalawa, the ocean. We have Morundi, the River Murray. Our languages belong to our country. There is deep knowledge embedded in our countries.
7:16 Speaker 06 Like me, Jade grew up knowing a few words from her language, but not many. She says even though she was living on her country, not knowing her language made her feel disconnected.
7:30 Speaker 07 If you don't feel like you belong and you're not connecting, you feel like an outsider. But when you connect to things and you feel part of it, you feel a strong sense of who you are.
7:43 Speaker 07 I guess I was without that for a long time. It kind of felt like there was a hole in my heart that I didn't know why it was there.
7:50 Speaker 06 Recently Jade embarked on a PhD to explore cultural healing through the revitalisation of our languages and the outcomes and pathways that come of that. It's still early days, but Jade has gone into her doctorate, having already seen firsthand how powerful language reclamation can be.
8:12 Speaker 07 Currently, in my current role, I'm teaching at the Youth Justice Centre in Adelaide, Gulanatapa, and I'm also teaching at Nguru Aboriginal College. And they have my heart. So Gulanatapa, the incarcerated youth there, I get to hang out with young Aboriginal lads usually. I've spent some time with these young people after listening to lots of their stories. I mean, everyone's different. Like, you can't put a general blanker on everyone, on all of the young people's stories.
8:54 Speaker 07 But I just know in my Mewi, in my spirit, in my heart, that if those young people had a different environment or different opportunities, that they would not be in the situation and position that they are now.
9:16 Speaker 06 When it comes to learning our languages, there are clear benefits.
9:21 Speaker 07 The individual benefits from learning language, from learning any language actually, you have a better memory, you've got better problem-solving skills, it can help with, I should say. Concentration, increased happiness, it gives you confidence. And an act of cultural reclamation against historical dislocation, which just gives you that sense of fierceness and like you're taking something back that should have been yours the whole time.
9:49 Speaker 06 But overwhelmingly, these aren't the driving factors for First Nations people taking on the challenge of revitalising their language. Instead, mob are learning so we can connect to country and to each other. We're also learning in order to heal the wounds inflicted by colonial violence. Because when it comes to our languages, they didn't just disappear out of view, they were actively suppressed. Speaking language came with real consequences.
10:25 Speaker 06 Kids being forcibly removed from their families. Being denied your rations. Even physical punishments.
10:37 Speaker 06 Sometimes when we talk about the Stolen Generations or Mission Days, I feel like people think it's a thing of the past. Something that happened a long time ago, but doesn't really affect us now. But my own mum, my number. She grew up on a mission. That's how recent this history is.
11:01 Speaker 07 A lot of our old people were silenced and punished for speaking language. I've heard stories of our old people being children at the time and being hushed that their parents were just trying to protect them, like, shh, don't speak language, in front of the white fellas.
11:25 Speaker 06 Earlier, I told you I'd been learning my language. But what I didn't tell you was that there was something I wish I'd known before walking into the classroom.
11:37 Speaker 06 That first night, I was full of excitement and nerves. But later, when I was driving home with my ngamba, we were talking about the class and what we'd learnt. And I realised I wasn't feeling great anymore. I was mad and sad.
11:58 Speaker 06 It took me a while, but I eventually figured out what was getting to me was that this wasn't how I wanted to be learning my language.
12:08 Speaker 06 I didn't want to be in my 30s, sitting in a classroom surrounded by other adults. I wanted to learn as a kid, sitting in my lounge room.
12:19 Speaker 06 I wanted to talk to my wabi, my maternal grandmother, or her sisters. This feeling I was having, it wasn't unique. Here's Jade McHughes again.
12:32 Speaker 07 Well, really, it should have been your birthright. It should have been our birthright to learn our mother tongue and for it to be our first language. So I think that we've got every right to have a fire in our belly and to be upset about that.
12:45 Speaker 06 Jade doesn't think this frustration is restricted to when you first learn language. It's a phenomenon that can occur throughout every stage of language reclamation.
12:57 Speaker 07 Our Ngandjedi have got some beautiful resources that wouldn't have been able to be put together if it wasn't for missionaries that recorded our language back long ago. And I get very bittersweet feelings around that, too. Those recordings have been... Really, really helpful for us as learners today because a lot of us need that visual or the grammar, but I get really angry about that, too. I get that fire in my belly because I think in one moment I'm grateful and then in the very next I get real because I think that the only reason that they really did that was to spread the word of God and to teach the English language.
13:40 Speaker 06 When that fire in the belly starts getting too hot, Jade recommends thinking about the reasons you started on this journey. For her, it's all about her kids.
13:51 Speaker 07 I've got two teenage boys and I want them to be empowered. That's where I keep going. The other part is that I've copped a lot of flak in my community in this whole journey and process. I think sometimes some people might monopolise cultural inclusion around our community
14:17 Speaker 07 by saying I'm the only one that's allowed to do that and I'm the only one that should be doing that. And I want to deeply research and know that I have the power to be able to teach and that our language and our culture doesn't belong to one person. It belongs to our country and it belongs to us and our children should have the right to know and to learn regardless of who it's coming from.
14:57 Speaker 05 From ABC Radio National, this is All in the Mind. I'm Sana Qadar. Word up host Rudi Bremer is reporting today's episode. And Rudy, I spoke in the intro about how if I ever wanted to get better at my Urdu, I have a lot of people I could chat to in the world. But that's not really the case for a lot of indigenous languages where, you know, there are fewer and fewer people speaking those languages. So what happens if you want to revitalise your language and learn to speak, but there's not that many people to speak to?
15:24 Speaker 06 Okay, so this is a really important element because when it comes to language, having someone to speak to is critical. Not only does it activate all the linguistic elements of language and increase the speed at which you process information, it also puts language into real context.
15:45 Speaker 06 For example, when one of my classmates accidentally said thinawon, emu, instead of the awon, family, we were suddenly having a very different conversation.
15:59 Speaker 06 But some mob aren't lucky enough to be around their community or their family while learning. Still, Blackfellas are resourceful. Take Trinity Clark, for example.
16:11 Speaker 02 Nyirayala, ngai gubori Trinity Clark. Ngai gugami, julewara, borwara, gunwara, jergowara. Jana Eastern Gugi Alangi. Ngai gungaji lama lama ai patu dingar. One of my languages that I'm learning and speaking is one of my grandmother's languages, Gugi Alangi. The language and dialect from like Eastern Gugi Alangi nation. So that's in like Dangtry Rainforest area. So to say my country is Majanjibubu, so rainforest country. And then um another language that I'm learning is Gugu Nyungu from my grandmother as well.
16:53 Speaker 02 And that country is more north, so kind of more Rossville, Shiptins, flat area. And that country is kind of more um open woodland area, like country we burn. Um and I call that Ngalgaljibubu.
17:09 Speaker 06 Trinity grew up learning a few Gugu Alangi words here and there from her mum. And remembers having a keen sense that she wanted to learn more.
17:18 Speaker 02 Our culture and our country is meant to live through our language. Language is the breath of our country, our culture and our, our people. So speaking language means that like I just feel so much more connected to everything and whole in myself. Like names for kinship, like structures, like family.
17:38 Speaker 06 But as she got older, Trinity moved away to attend boarding school.
17:42 Speaker 02 And having language, learning language was like a tether um to back home for me.
17:50 Speaker 06 During the school holidays, Trinity started filming her nannies. Later, she'd listen to the videos and record herself saying the same lines. And then just keep doing it over and over until she felt like what she was saying matched what they were saying.
18:08 Speaker 02 The first time I'd say it and like I'd get it wrong and I'm like, oh, I know I'm getting it wrong. But what am I getting wrong? And I'd just keep doing that over and over until um I was speaking it the way my nanny was speaking it.
18:21 Speaker 06 What was it that made you decide to use this approach?
18:25 Speaker 02 I don't know. I think I was just on Snapchat, like snapping friends. And then I was like, I'm gonna do this to see what I sound like. And I was like, this is so wrong. This is nothing like what my nan sounds like. And so I just did that again. And then, yeah, I just did it each time until I could kind of thing. And then um I got better at speaking to not really need to do that. Yeah.
18:45 Speaker 06 I think that's so funny because Snapchat is one of those apps that is designed for the video to disappear. Like, and to be this kind of ephemeral medium.
18:57 Speaker 02 Yeah, yeah, exactly.
18:59 Speaker 06 And there's something really poetic in, yeah.
19:02 Speaker 02 And it was so funny too because when I was filming them speak, like they weren't translating it to English, like they were just speaking. So I'd have to listen to the video and then go in the dictionary and like try and find the words that they were um speaking. Because I could read Google like language and write it. So, yeah, I'd like try and find it in the dictionary. And I noticed there were some words that I was just not hearing properly. Like um budget go you're not do, but like I heard it together. And so I kind of heard like the word fish. And that was not in the sentence at all. We're just talking about people. And I was like, why is she talking about fish? So obviously, I'm I'm not hearing that right.
19:43 Speaker 02 It was just like real analyzing all these videos and listening and speaking and yeah. But it was it was, yeah, because I'm by myself. I didn't have live feedback, so I had to do that.
19:56 Speaker 06 Trinity's 25 now and she's living on her country and in her community again. These days, she works for Jabulwina Yalanji Aboriginal Corporation.
20:09 Speaker 06 It's an organisation that does a lot of different things. But Trinity's focus is developing curricula that'll help create fluency in her communities. And it's exciting work, but she says it still comes with challenges.
20:25 Speaker 02 We're the oldest living continuing culture. So that means our practices 60, 80,000 years ago are the same today. For us to stay living as cultures and languages, we need to be able to practise and speak our languages. So language revitalisation work is often looking like people saying, oh, well, let's document this. Let's record this. Let's make a dictionary. Let's make an app. Let's make a website or this or that or this or that. But those resources, they're not living. What's living is our people and our country. And so language revitalisation work needs to look like creating speakers,
21:09 Speaker 02 creating fluency with all generations to create safe language situations. It needs to look like, you know, having babies born as first language speakers of their mother languages, of the languages of their country. When people think about or talk about, you know, policies towards Indigenous peoples and talking about health or talking about programmes or anything like they're talking about country and they talk about culture and they talk about the communities. But language is the foundational piece to all of them. It's what ties everything together as Indigenous people, but it's often forgotten about in these larger conversations. And so language work is really hard work, but it's often left to the wayside
21:53 Speaker 02 and left to really passionate community members who are driving forces to keep their language alive. And yeah, like they're really amazing people, but I wish that there was just more structure and support to this integral work.
22:16 Speaker 05 So Rudy, both Trinity and Jade have kind of referenced how language is really important for kinship systems and like describing those properly. Can you sort of describe what they meant?
22:28 Speaker 06 So our kinship systems are notoriously complex and sophisticated. They don't just describe the relationship between individuals, they actually describe our responsibilities towards each other.
22:43 Speaker 05 Okay.
22:44 Speaker 06 In having to use English to describe our relationship with each other, it flattens the whole understanding and it really disrupts and to some degree damages the relationships too.
23:02 Speaker 05 That's really fascinating because I understand having different words for different relationships in a family. Like in Urdu, for example, your aunt on your dad's side is your papa and your aunt on your mum's side is your chala. And there's different words for everyone depending on what side of the family. But what do you mean when you say it also describes your responsibilities to them?
23:20 Speaker 06 With a caveat that I've not been able to grow up with this kinship system intact, sort of similar to what you're saying, there is a distinct difference and a relationship difference between how you interact with your cousins that have come from your paternal aunt versus the cousins that are from your paternal uncle, for instance.
23:51 Speaker 05 Wow.
23:51 Speaker 06 Because your father's brothers are also your father. So those cousins are your siblings.
23:56 Speaker 05 Okay.
23:58 Speaker 06 Your father's sister's children, they are cousins and they are treated as such.
24:03 Speaker 05 Okay.
24:04 Speaker 06 Then when you go to the mother's side, your mother's sister, they're also your mother. So her children are your brothers and sisters.
24:11 Speaker 05 Wow, okay.
24:12 Speaker 06 Your mother's brother.
24:15 Speaker 06 Is your uncle and so his children are your cousins.
24:18 Speaker 05 Right, so aunt just doesn't cover it off.
24:21 Speaker 06 It just doesn't cover it off. Then you have to think about the cycles of relationships that we have. And this is where I often need visuals. The way that your great grandmother treats you when you are a child, as a baby, by the time you are old enough to take on those caring responsibilities, you're treating your great grandmother in the way that you would be responsible for a baby. Now, that sounds like kind of infantilising, but it's obviously like you're thinking about the age gap that exists between a great grandparent and a child.
24:56 Speaker 05 Right.
24:56 Speaker 06 Great grandchild.
24:57 Speaker 05 And there's care needed at both ends of life.
24:59 Speaker 06 Exactly. So we have these sort of cyclical relationships that we have with each other that are also determined through the way that we identify each other through language.
25:28 Speaker 06 I'm in Tamworth today, on the Milleroy country, on my country. And I've been thinking a lot about the conversations I've had with people who've championed language over the years. People like Jade McCues and Trinity Clark and so many others. And the way we all seem to experience language reclamation through this sense of connection and belonging and community.
26:05 Speaker 06 Like it makes our very spirit feel good.
26:11 Speaker 06 In Gamilaraay, it's called
26:15 Speaker 06 Gaya duwi. Gaya duwi. And to break that down a little more, gaya is pleased or happy, and duwi is spirit.
26:28 Speaker 06 And I'm gonna be honest,
26:31 Speaker 06 I did have to look that up because I am still working on my Gamilaraay skills.
26:39 Speaker 06 But yeah, for Mobb, our languages are so much more than mere words.
26:49 Speaker 06 Our languages are where we code our cultural identities and our philosophies.
26:56 Speaker 06 It's also where we code so much knowledge about the land.
27:01 Speaker 06 When we speak our languages, we carry our ancestors with us.
27:07 Speaker 06 And finally, being able to speak directly to them through the names of the rivers and the mountains and the birds and the trees, that really is gaya duwi.
27:34 Speaker 05 That is Gamilaraay woman Brody Bremer. She's the producer of Indigenous language series Word Up and the presenter of Away, an Indigenous arts and culture programme. Both of those shows can be found on ABC Listen.
27:52 Speaker 05 You also heard from Naranjari woman and PhD candidate Jade McHughes and language worker and Gugu Yalanji woman Trinity Clark.
28:02 Speaker 05 Guringai woman Kaylene Langford produced this episode with additional production by All in the Mind's producer Rose Kerr and senior producer James Bullen. Our sound engineer this week was Teagan Nichols. And hey, if you like what you've been hearing on All in the Mind this year, can I ask a favour? Could you consider leaving us a review on whatever podcast app you use to listen to All in the Mind? It helps new people find the show. It's always wonderful for us to see what you think. And if you have any feedback as well, you can also always get in touch with us at all in the mind at abc.net.au. I've said this before, but we don't always get a chance to respond to every single person who writes in, but we definitely read every single message that comes to that inbox.
28:47 Speaker 05 All right, that's all from us this week. I'm Sana Qadar. Thank you for listening. I'll catch you next time.
29:27 Speaker 05 Hey, it's Sana here. Do you wish your kids could discover the joy of screen-free ear entertainment as well? Well, they can. All the best and funniest and secretly educational podcasts are on ABC Listen. Your kids will unearth adventures with Gardening Australia Junior, explore big questions with Imagine This, and learn about the world with News Time. All of those shows and a whole lot more are available for free in the child-safe part of ABC Listen. Just look for the Kids tab. And while your kids' ears are busy, I reckon you'll be able to sneak in another episode of your fave pod, too. So, go on, then.
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