Heart-warming, heart breaking and hilarious, this discussion celebrates the roots and routes which we all traverse.
In Australia alone, we have over 300 languages but as a society we have a monolingual mindset. Even if we have a multiplicity of languages, English holds a hegemonic place in our daily lives.
We need to support the revival and survival of languages, actively work against language loss, and hear from those with lived experiences with preserving their mother tongues.
In this session, Lachlan McDaniel, Anne Casey, Neda Dowling, and Dr Elaine Laforteza shared their experiences with a mother language that differs to the dominant ways of hearing, speaking, and writing in Australia.
DR ELAINE LAFORTEZA: Hello, everyone. My name is Elaine Laforteza and I'm so happy to welcome you to the panel discussion for International Mother Language Day. I will say that again for the recording. Hello, everyone. My name is Elaine Laforteza and I'm so thankful that you're able to join us for our International Mother Language Day event today. To start, I would like to acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation on whose Country I am on today. I would also like to pay my respects to Elders past and present and to all First Nations people here with us today. I invite everyone on our panel and in our audience to please write down what Country you're joining from in the chat. I would also like to acknowledge that as a non Indigenous migrant to this country, I've accrued a whole host of privileges based on the ongoing dispossession of Indigenous sovereignty and so I acknowledge my own commitment to decolonising work. Always was and always will be.
So before we begin so exciting some housekeeping info first. Today's event is being live captioned. To view the captions, please click on the CC button in your Zoom control panel at the bottom of your screen or you can click on the link that's in the chat to view captions on your web browser. And if you have any questions during our event, please type them into the Q&A box and you can also find this in your Zoom control panel, and you can upvote questions that others have asked. Hopefully we'll have enough time to go through these questions and I'll be asking the ones that have been upvoted the most.
So please remember to use the Q&A box for questions directed to Anne, Lachlan and Neda today, our panel, because questions may get lost if you write them in the chat box. We're also recording today's session and we will email the link to the recording to anyone and everyone who is registered for the event. So please feel free to share this with your networks.
Now, today marks International Mother Language Day. For those who don't know, this was an initiative of Bangladesh. This was a way to redress the injustice of police shooting Dhaka University students when they were rallying in defence of their mother tongue, Bangla, in the 1950s. The day was approved at the 1999 UNESCO General Conference and has since been observed since the year 2000. UNESCO, in their words, believe in the importance of cultural and linguistic diversity for sustainable societies. It is within its mandate for peace that it works to preserve the differences in cultures and languages that foster tolerance and respect for others.
We've added a link in the chat if you would like to learn more about the origins of International Mother Language Day. And I'm especially curious to check on the linguistic diversity today, so I invite you to write what languages you speak, what languages can you read, what can you write in, what languages do you dream in, and please write this down in the chat and I'll have a look what pops up.
So for me, my mother tongues are Ilocano and Tagalog, which are both Filipino languages, and I can see Anne has put her mother tongue. That's exciting. OK. Great. And I can see a few people who are not just bilingual but multilingual as well. I can see Hindu and Bangla, Arabic. OK, that's great, and thank you so much for being here today. It's really great to see this linguistic diversity in attendance.
But, sadly, linguistic diversity is increasingly threatened as more and more languages disappear. In Australia alone, can you believe we have over 300 languages, which is amazing, but often it doesn't feel like that because we have a monolingual mindset. So even if we have a multiplicity of languages, English holds a hegemonic place in our daily lives. So we need to support the revival and the survival of languages, actively work against language loss and hear from those with lived experiences with preserving their mother tongues.
Today, we are lucky to have champions of linguistic diversity. On our panel we have Anne Casey, clap; Lachlan McDaniel, more claps; and Neda Dowling, claps all around. I know it's very strange in a webinar where we can see people doing this but we don't hear the sound, so I'll provide the sounds. And I hope that's claps for everyone. So Anne has worked for 30 years as a journalist, a media communications director and legal author. She is also an internationally award winning poet. Anne's work is widely published, ranking in The Irish Times' Most Read and winning awards including the American Writers Review Prize and the Henry Lawson Prize. Anne's doctoral work at UTS explores decolonising lost histories through poetics of resistance. Welcome, Anne.
ANNE CASEY: (Speaks in Gaeilge). Thank you so much.
DR ELAINE LAFORTEZA: Maraming salamat. We also have Lachlan McDaniel, who belongs to the Galari clan of the Wiradjuri Nation and is learning the Wiradjuri language. Lachlan's PhD explores the significance of Wiradjuri cultural revitalisation, including how the revitalisation of the Wiradjuri language impacts the socio political status of the Wiradjuri people in Australia. It also explores the significance of Wiradjuri cultural revitalisation on Wiradjuri aspirations for self determination. Welcome, Lachlan.
LACHLAN McDANIEL: Mandaang Guwu, Elaine.
DR ELAINE LAFORTEZA: Maraming salamat. We also have Neda Dowling. Neda is an advocate for social justice and equality and is passionate about addressing the challenges faced by asylum seekers and refugees while promoting inclusivity for the LGBTQIA+ community. Neda works at the UTS Human Technology Institute, facilitating research and collaboration to bridge the gap between technology and humanitarian efforts for a human centred world. She's also a core member of the UTS Multicultural Women's Network. Welcome, Neda.
NEDA DOWLING: Tashakur, Elaine, which means thank you so much, Elaine.
DR ELAINE LAFORTEZA: Maraming salamat, Neda. I am so thrilled to be having this discussion with a brilliant group of people and I'd like to kick off with this question to everyone. What is your mother language and can you introduce yourself in your mother tongue? I'll start with Anne.
ANNE CASEY: Dia dhuit, everyone. Hello, everyone. My mother language is Irish, Gaeilge, which is a Gaelic language, but the Irish version of Gaelic is called Gaeilge. To introduce myself...(speaks in Gaeilge). So that means: hello, everyone, I'm Anne Casey and I'm really thrilled to be here together with you all today.
DR ELAINE LAFORTEZA: Beautiful. Thank you so much, Anne. And I'm going to pose the same question to you, Lachlan.
LACHLAN McDANIEL: Thank you. So my mother language is the Wiradjuri language, the language of the Wiradjuri people. I would say my first language is English. It's the language that I grew up with and I'm most proficient in. To introduce myself, I would say: (speaks in Wiradjuri language). So ladies, gentlemen and friends, good day to you all. My name is Lachlan. I'm a Wiradjuri man.
DR ELAINE LAFORTEZA: Beautiful. Thank you so much, Lachlan. And how about you, Neda? What is your mother language or languages and can you introduce yourself in them?
NEDA DOWLING: Absolutely. So I speak two languages. As Elaine mentioned, I am an advocate for asylum seekers. I am myself an asylum seeker, so I grew up in Indonesia for the majority of my life, for over 12 years, so I speak Bahasa, which is Indonesia's national language, and I also speak Dari, which is Afghanistan's national one of the national languages as well. And to introduce myself, I would like to introduce myself in both languages because both languages hold quite dear meaning to me. So I'll start with Dari, which is....(speaks in Dari), which: hi, my name is Neda. And in Indonesian, it would be...(speaks in Bahasa). Now, you might have noticed I didn't say 'Neda' in that sentence because I do have an Indonesian name, and my Indonesian name is Suria.
DR ELAINE LAFORTEZA: Oh, wow. Well, thank you. Maraming salamat, Suria. I didn't know that until today, so that's really interesting how even names and roles and your identity changes within the different language codes as well. I'm going to stay with you, Neda. Can you tell me a moment where you felt most proud of speaking either Dari or Bahasa?
NEDA DOWLING: Absolutely. I would say I'm so grateful that I was taught how to speak Dari, coming from a refugee background and having lived in so many different places. In particular, I would say the most heartwarming moment was to be able to speak with my grandma. My grandma's sole language is Dari, and without being taught Dari and knowing how to speak that, I wouldn't have been able to communicate with her. So just communicating with her but also that's a way for her to share her stories as well. That's what I love doing the most.
DR ELAINE LAFORTEZA: That's really beautiful, Neda, the way that you can connect to your grandma and how language is the way in which the family ties and kinship become strengthened. I'm going to ask you, Anne: can you tell us about a moment where you felt most proud of speaking your mother tongue?
ANNE CASEY: Oh, gosh. That's a hard one. I definitely am very proud to use language to try to reclaim lost histories, which is what I am doing through my doctoral work at UTS, but I also use Irish I thread it through my poetry. I guess one thing I really, really love and I'm very privileged to be able to do is each year I'm invited to welcome new Irish immigrants to Australia as part of their Australian citizenship ceremony. So I always say (speaks in Gaeilge), which is a few words in Irish, and if I could also, I'd like to just say I always give an acknowledgment in our language to Australia's First Nations people. So I would say (speaks in Gaeilge), which means I pay tribute to their Elders who were and who are here still.
DR ELAINE LAFORTEZA: That's amazing, Anne, and I really love the way that use your mother tongue to acknowledge First Nations sovereignty as well. I often find with discussions about Indigenous sovereignty or reconciliation, that it's often a black and white divide, so what happens to those that don't necessarily fit neatly in those categories or have different languages, but you put it in language, which shows that we are all accountable for this process and to be in this together. So thank you so much for that. I think that's a great takeaway for me personally to do that in my own mother tongue as well. So thanks, Anne.
So, Lachlan, tell us a moment where you felt most proud of speaking your mother tongue.
LACHLAN McDANIEL: I think my most proud moment was in my first Wiradjuri lesson class. So I did a Graduate Certificate in Wiradjuri Language and Cultural Heritage at Charles Sturt University. I just completed it recently. The content of that course was based off the work of Uncle Stan Grant Sr, who is the reporter Stan Grant's father. He had to learn the Wiradjuri language in secret for fear of being removed from his family. He didn't go through the process of revitalising and documenting our language until later in his life. And so to be able to speak the language in a university setting while Uncle Stan is still alive, within his lifetime, going from seeing the language being in a state of having to be taught in secret to be included in a university, I think that was my proudest moment of speaking the language.
DR ELAINE LAFORTEZA: I got goosebumps when you told us that story, Lachlan. What a wonderful, powerful way to speak your language in the presence of Elders who are still present, that are still here, and to be able to share that in an institution, like a formalised institution, to be able to speak it not in secret, that it is actually taught, legitimised, acknowledged. That's so beautiful. So thank you for sharing that, Lachlan.
Now I'm going to keep going with what you have said, Lachlan. So why do you think that speaking and hearing Wiradjuri is important in Australia?
LACHLAN McDANIEL: I think it's important for several reasons. I think probably the main reason that comes to mind is that languages aren't different sounding words for the same thing. They encapsulate concepts, ideas, world views, and I think that's a large reason why during colonisation we see the attempt at eradication of languages.
So retaining these languages and teaching these languages teaches different world views and that can have a very significant impact on people. So, for example, I'll give you an example. In Wiradjuri, you cannot compare one thing to the other with one word. You can't say that someone's house is bigger than another person's house; one student is smarter than another student. You can't say one person is prettier than another person. You can say one person is pretty and the other person is very pretty but that's awkward to do so you wouldn't do it. If you wanted to say, for example, someone was the smartest person in the class, you would have to explain that that person is extremely smart and then go through the 30 other students and explain their level of intelligence, which is very inefficient, so you wouldn't do it.
So I think that teaches us Wiradjuri people learning about our language a lot about our Elders, that they were very mindful of showing respect to one another, that they saw the danger in having a society in which you constantly compare you and what you have to everyone around you. So that's I think the most important reason why we retain languages and we keep these languages because it shows us that there are other ways of being sometimes that are better than the ones that we're living in now.
DR ELAINE LAFORTEZA: Lachlan, that really resonates with me in the way that language really is not just a bunch of words strung together. It's not just how it sounds but it is about those cultural codes and our cultural roots and routes as well. In my language, in Ilocano and Tagalog my languages, sorry the structure of it is very much dependent on your position within society and in your family, and so we have specific words for people who are older than us or who we pay respect to and so on, and it's ingrained in language so it then informs how we then behave and how we collectively come together, which I don't quite find works in the same way as English.
I'm going to go to Neda now and I'm going to ask the same question, Neda. Why do you think that speaking and hearing your mother languages is that important?
NEDA DOWLING: Thank you, Elaine. Well, I moved to Australia well, migrated to Australia in 2012. I remember moving here and then a part of my story is I was also moved into a detention centre here in Australia. When I was at the detention centre, I was still learning English myself, so I didn't know how to speak English quite fluently. But also I spoke Dari and Bahasa quite fluently. So back then, I would say if you were to ask me, "Can you read and write in Bahasa quite well?", and I would say, "Yes, yes, I sure can", but now if you asked me the same question, my answer is completely different. It wouldn't be, "Yes, I am 100% fluent in Bahasa reading and writing" I mean, I can speak to you but I think when a language hasn't been spoken for I don't know, for me it's been almost close to 10 years, you tend to lose part of that identity as well. You not only lose the words but you also lose that identity.
I guess for me personally, when I was in Indonesia, I used to dream in Indonesian, in Bahasa, and all of my dreams, everything, my train of thought, they're all in Bahasa. Then when I was I like to call it 'in between', so when I was in a detention centre and I was still learning English, when I was an 'in between' I actually resorted into Dari, which is my mother tongue. That's the language my mother and my family speaks. But then as soon as I started learning English and seeing the society, this is the language that's being used the most, that train of thought and that dream thinking is all in English. So now I feel like it is really hard to really consciously speak those languages that you do other than the main language that the society is speaking.
DR ELAINE LAFORTEZA: Thank you so much for sharing that, Neda, and also how it connects you to different times and places, that it's very context specific and place based. The way that you told us that you used to dream in your languages too, I can relate to that. I can't recall the last time I dreamt in Ilocano. I think randomly sometimes Tagalog but it's really boring dreams, like I'm grocery shopping. I could use better dreams, I think! Hopefully it will be in Ilocano soon. But I'm going to turn to you now, Anne, and with the same question. Why do you think that speaking and hearing your mother tongue is important?
ANNE CASEY: Firstly, can I say I almost have whiplash from nodding to Neda and Lachlan's points about their language. I nodded so much. Where to start really? I guess it was quite shocking to me to see in 2021 that UNESCO put Irish Gaeilge on the list of the top 12 most at risk languages in Europe because I grew up fluent in Irish and it was so deeply, culturally important to us. I use it now to Lachlan was talking about his grandparents' story, and for me it's about reclaiming the voices of my grandparents too, who suffered deep political violence during the War of Independence in 1920. It's reasonably recent history in our family because I grew up at their knees hearing just really devastating stories and my grandfather used to talk about being beaten as a child for speaking in Irish, and so for me it's just really both deeply personal but also a political act to keep this language alive and I feel so passionately and deeply about that.
But like Neda's story and your extraordinary story, I don't have anything like that personally but for me, I used to think in Irish. I don't remember dreaming in Irish but I absolutely remember thinking in Irish. I came here in my mid 20s so it's 30 years ago. That's really eroded my fluency in my own native language and it's only been through my seeking to reclaim the lost histories of Irish family immigrants here through my doctoral work that I suddenly started thinking in Irish again. It's been like an epiphany but so joyful, and the best part is that there's poetry coming out in Irish and I just love that and I hope that that will be a good way of getting it out into the public sphere again.
DR ELAINE LAFORTEZA: Thank you so much for the work that you're doing in that regard, Anne, and what I'm also hearing is this sense of people have to speak their language in secret or people are beaten because they speak in their language or it's been dreamt out of you, it's chased away from your dreams, and in a way that means: OK, you're assimilated now; you are part of the comfort zones that bound this nation, what's acceptable, what's intelligible and so on.
When I was growing up in the Philippines, there was an element to that wherein we would be fined if we spoke in a language other than English. So this was immediately tied to how much money we had. Could we buy something from the canteen today? Oh, no, we can't because I spoke in Ilocano. And we were encouraged to inform on our classmates as well. So if we heard someone, "Oh, they're speaking in Tagalog", (speaks in Tagalog). Oh, crap, I spoke it too, I lose my money. But then you get rewarded for informing on another person as well. So it's just such an insidious way to tie cultural and economic capital to English, which, yes, that is true in this global economy that we have but then the loss of that is quite significant wherein we can't even dream in the languages that our mothers, fathers, grandparents were raised in as well, and so that connection is lost too.
Now, Anne, what you're saying about bringing poetry, and especially Irish poetry, more and more of that, can you tell us more about that and your research in general?
ANNE CASEY: Thank you. Yes. Like Lachlan said, through colonisation, in controlling the dominated population by erasing their language and their culture, it really is a very, as you said, insidious form of control. And that's what happened in Ireland. So the language and culture were prohibited.
So my research is exploring the lost histories of Irish famine immigrants to Australia. So, as a result of colonisation, the devastation of the famine in Ireland was far, far greater. Millions of people were starving for five years while the British government or British landlords continued to ship large quantities of food out of Ireland. Immigration became a form of survival. And, unfortunately, I have this real dilemma as well. I'm a latter day immigrant to Australia, so I'm living on stolen land and I'm writing about people who came from stolen land to live on stolen land. So there's a lot of very either conflicted feelings in relation to that but there's also a kind of a solidarity there as well, and I'm trying to explain that, the complexity of those feelings as well, through my poetry and through my work.
So many of the Irish famine immigrants who came here came from rural areas, like my own in the west of Ireland, and they would only have spoken Irish. So when they came here, that was a major barrier to them and they experienced huge amounts of discrimination and hardship and destitution here as a result. So I'm seeking to reclaim their stories and give voice to their experiences, and I feel that threading the Irish language through my thesis is a really important way of making that statement that this is about reclaiming their story. So I've threaded some of the Irish language like epigraphs in the chapters through the exegetical writings but I have also written a poetry collection which is going to be published as a book. My publisher in Ireland has agreed to publish it. The poetry also has a version in Irish.
While I was visiting a work house where some of these families were broken up and people died and were detained in various ways, standing outside, the Irish language just came flooding back to me and so I wrote a poem, which I think is the one you read or you might have listened to on the Red Room Poetry site. So sorry, that's a very mixed up way of telling you what I'm doing but it's really about resisting the silencing in many different figurative ways and literal ways.
DR ELAINE LAFORTEZA: No, not a very mixed up way at all, Anne. Very articulate and elegant way of phrasing your research and especially the complexity of doing so on stolen land, coming from stolen land to another context where land is also unceded, and the need for solidarity, that it is a form of solidarity to do this kind of research, but the work that needs to go into creating and maintaining that solidarity is not lost in what you've told us, which is great.
Now, I'm going to move to Lachlan. Can you tell us more about your research and your experiences of learning your mother language?
LACHLAN MCDANIEL: Yes, sure. So I am researching the revitalisation of Wiradjuri cultural practices, one of which is the language, and I would say that language revitalisation has been the practice that's been going on for the longest and has probably progressed the furtherest, but also looking at things like the creation of our possum skin cloaks that weren't made for more than 150 years, our carving and weaving traditions in addition to the language too.
So my research is essentially looking at how and why people are reintroducing these practices after sometimes more than a century. And then when people do reintroduce these practices, what impacts do they have? And particularly around our socio political status as First Peoples within Australia. A large part of that research is the telling of people's stories about how they came about to undertake Wiradjuri cultural revitalisation. Again, that work of Uncle Stan Grant Senior in revitalising the language is key. His experiences of seeing his grandfather being arrested by the police for speaking the Wiradjuri language in Australia, to having to learn the language in secret, to having to remember as a man I believe in about his 40s what he had been taught as a child and rewrite that with the aid of colonial accounts of the Wiradjuri language, through to where we are today. So that's more or less, I suppose, the gist of what my research is covering.
DR ELAINE LAFORTEZA: It's just such necessary, important research, Lachlan, and I've told you this before but I would love to read any part of it. I'm fans of everyone on this panel, so feel free to send all of your work my way.
I'm just going to read a comment on the chat from one of our audience members. Ruma says: "The joy each of you feel in the ownership you obviously feel about your own language is palpable! Thank you so much. As a translator from Bangla to English, I feel that the diaspora need to feel this joy, even if it is second hand via my explanation". Thank you so much for writing that, Ruma. And, yes, this is a joyful day because we are talking about resistance, we are talking about continuity and homage to our heritage as well. On that, I'm going to ask Neda: do you have any stories that are either heartwarming, hilarious, maybe full of joy to do with being multilingual?
NEDA DOWLING: Oh, Elaine, I do. I have so many stories. So hard to choose one but I'll try my best to give the best story.
So as you all know, I do speak in Dari and Bahasa. One of the stories that pops up when you ask me this question is when I first was released into the community from the detention centre here in Australia. So I was released into Sydney, and being a refugee for 12 years before that, living in Indonesia, you do make a lot of connection and a lot of friendship. I remember one of my best friends from Indonesia was also a refugee, was also an Afghan refugee, who has become a diaspora here in Australia. Their family also lived in Sydney, in Auburn more specifically. So we were invited to a (speaks Dari), which means a gathering of people, and usually in my culture, a gathering it's not just 10, 15 people to have around. It's like hundreds, like hundreds of people. And it is separated by gender as well in my culture. So I was with all the women, all the girls, all the babies, so we're all congregating and chatting and discussing life and see how they're doing, how we are doing, and the women are responsible for cooking as well. And at this one moment, the gas tank had run out. They were cooking for 100 people so they needed more gas. So my best friend's mum said, "Hey, Angela, can you please go next door and ask them if we could borrow their gas tank", and you know, we're all teenagers, only about 13, 14. And she went, "Oh, OK. Do I really have to? Fine. I'll go and ask then". Of course this conversation happened in Dari. And I was quite new. I hadn't seen them in about like six to seven years. It had been so long since I'd seen this family. They also knew that we just recently got out of the detention centre.
So we went over to the neighbour and I feel like it's such an ethnic thing to do, to go to your neighbour and ask for a gas tank. So we went over to the neighbour and she went with her cousins and we knocked on the door and went knock, knock, knock. And this lady came out and she's like, "Yes? How can I help you?" And then she goes, "Oh, you know, we're cooking and we need that thing for cooking. I just wanted to borrow the thing". And she was just like standing there and trying to talk to this woman to ask for the thing. I just looked at her and I was like gosh, for someone who has been talking in English about my family and I, you really cannot ask for a gas tank! So I decided I was like alright, this is going to be my big reveal that I can speak English. So I said, "Actually what she meant was could we please borrow your gas tank. We're cooking for 100 people and the food is going to be cold if you don't give us this gas tank and we will return it to you tomorrow or next week". As soon as I asked that question, their faces went pale. They just looked at each other and they were like, "You can speak English?" And I was like, "Yep, yes, I can". I just took that gas tank and took it to the woman so quickly and I was like, "Here you go" and they kind of just looked around and would go, "Oh, my gosh, this person can speak English", and I don't know, at that moment I felt like a little bit cheekily powerful because I thought I understood everything that you were talking about me, but also it was really nice to see their faces when they found out I could speak English.
DR ELAINE LAFORTEZA: I love that, Neda. It is like cheeky revenge! And you got the gas! People were fed. All 100 people were fed, which is great. But it is really funny. What I love about being familiar with different languages is when people don't realise you can speak the language that they're talking about you in, and you go, "Ah, you're actually talking about me. I'm just going to pretend I don't hear you and then I will talk back" and the big reveal in the faces that they pull is magical. (Speaks Filipino language) is what I say in my language, which is "I enjoy it".
Now, I'm going to go to Lachlan. Do you have any heartwarming or hilarious or heartbreaking or all three kind of stories you can share with us about speaking and hearing your mother tongue?
LACHLAN McDANIEL: I mean, heartwarming and also I guess a little bit heartbreaking was that I didn't hear my language, my mother language, the Wiradjuri language, being spoken fluently until I was an adult. I was in my mid 20s. So I was having a chat to a Wiradjuri woman who teaches the Wiradjuri language in the course that I under took before I was undertaking the course and her son was on play equipment and was doing something stupid like sons do on play equipment and she kind of yelled out to him to stop doing what he was doing in Wiradjuri and it was a really emotional moment for me because I hadn't heard my mother tongue spoken fluently until that point in time. And so I think that was a really heartwarming moment to hear that. It was a very powerful moment but in the same sense, it was heartbreaking that this is a language that had been spoken in this land for tens of thousands of years potentially more, and yet this was the first time that I had ever really heard it. So, yes, that was a really powerful moment for me.
Then I suppose also would be hearing Uncle Stan tell his story as part of my research. I sat down with him in his house and had a cup of tea and he told me the story of him revitalising the language over decades, from having to learn the language in secret after his grandfather was arrested, to going through colonial accounts and trying to put together a dictionary to travelling across the country he would work his day job through the week and on the weekends he would go to country towns and teach Wiradjuri courses and classes for free out of his own pocket. So it was a heart warming story to hear about how the language was at a point where people couldn't really find a fluent speaker to the point now where we have a free iPhone app to learn the Wiradjuri language, we have a university course, we have a grammar book as well, yes. I think that's a heartwarming story.
DR ELAINE LAFORTEZA: That's super heartwarming. That's powerful, isn't it, that's some powerful, powerful stuff, which speaks of the ongoing work that has been done and continues to be done to keep it there. And I'm telling you everything is an app now as well, right?
LACHLAN McDANIEL: Yes, absolutely.
DR ELAINE LAFORTEZA: That's how we communicate and how we can keep passing on language and culture. So that's super exciting.
LACHLAN McDANIEL: The app was really important because the dictionary came first but because there were so few fluent speakers, we were Wiradjuri people were reading the dictionary and pronouncing the words with an Australian accent, which is very different, so say, for example, the letter R, we say R in Australia, but in Wiradjuri it's more like an Americanised R. And so the sound of the language was changing a lot, so the app, you're able to press a button and hear Uncle Stan say the word with the correct Wiradjuri pronunciation, and so it's not just preserving the word but how the language sounds too.
DR ELAINE LAFORTEZA: That's fantastic. What a useful and important resource. Thanks so much for sharing that, Lachlan. I'm going to go now to Anne. Do you have any heartwarming, heartbreaking or hilarious stories to do with your mother tongue?
ANNE CASEY: Well, Neda just triggered a thought for me, which is my husband is Irish also and sometimes when we're out in public, we speak in Irish so other people don't understand what we're saying. But it can backfire because there's a lot of Irish people in Australia! So we were actually speculating as to whether two people were on a first date once and the guy answered us in Irish. It was like, oh, so embarrassing!
But I suppose on the heartbreaking, heartwarming kind of side, my grandfather used to call me a (Gaeilge word) when I was little, and it just means so much to me, that phrase. It means "my pulse", so the beat of my heart. But he only ever said it in whispers and it wasn't until I was a little bit older that he explained why, and each time he spoke words in Irish, it was always under his breath because he had been beaten as a child for speaking in Irish. My grandfather's house, when he was 13, was burnt to the ground by British soldiers in an illegal act but that was the sort of environment that all of our grandparents grew up in, and I think that that was conveyed to us but also really what came through for me was the need to speak it loudly, you know, to respond by being their voice as well. So that was my story.
DR ELAINE LAFORTEZA: Thank you, Anne. Now my eyes are now my English has disappeared because when I get quite emotional, the English is gone, but what I was trying to say is (speaks in Filipino language), which is that's a lot. I mean, I don't know to translate that but that was such a beautiful, significant story of resilience and heartbreak, and to have to whisper an endearment is just so profound.
I'm going to go to some of our audience questions, and thank you for contributing. We have this question. So "Great discussion". I agree. "Thank you for sharing wonderful stories and encouraging us to speak our mother language more. What practical strategies can be implemented to effectively preserve and transmit languages to younger generations? How can communities and educators, example UTS academics and students, collaborate to ensure the sustainability and vitality of diverse linguistic heritages?". I might start with Lachlan there because I think you've got a lot of resources that you can share to answer that question.
LACHLAN McDANIEL: Yes. It varies a lot, I suppose, in terms a great thing to have is different forms of media, whether it's music, film, television, radio, and to listen to your language in that. Sometimes that's possible and sometimes it's not. So, for example, we don't really have Wiradjuri movies or songs or things that you can listen to to learn the language that way. A great tool when I was learning is to use post it cards around the house for different things or just as prompts, reminders. Sometimes it's easier to remember a word if it's associated with a place. Language days at home where only speaking in this language, even if it's very poorly and with lots of hand gestures, that still counts. So that's very useful too.
I think having Zoom and these kind of online meetings have been a great tool for learning languages when you aren't able to speak the language with other people very often, when it's very much a minority language, so that's something that is useful as well. And then I suppose to think bigger picture, I would strongly encourage all groups to think about setting up your own educational institutions where you can teach in your own language. We've seen our first Aboriginal school teaching in the Bundjalung language, up on the north coast of New South Wales, and so kids are being immersed in their language, and I think that's the key to fast tracking language learning, retention and revitalisation. So having your kids immersed in that, you can jump ahead generations at a time.
DR ELAINE LAFORTEZA: Yes, and targeting the youth to carry that on is really, I think, one of the best ways to do that. I'm trying to teach my kids my mother tongue. Failing I have to say. But I really resonated with when you said language days even if it's a lot of hand gestures and it's not that great, but to keep persisting, I think that ongoing persistence and to recognise that it's hard work but it's necessary work if we want to get to the stage where it becomes normalised.
I'm going to ask that same question to Neda. What practical strategies can be implemented effectively to preserve and transmit languages to the new generation or the younger generation?
NEDA DOWLING: Thank you, Elaine. What I have been doing and what I find the most useful, I've kind of been trying to train my Instagram algorithm to show me feeds of people speaking in my language. So I've been following a couple of content creators who are diaspora Afghans, so they make content in both English and Dari. Basically I just found out that by listening to these kits, I can become familiar with the way the language is being written. In Dari I did go to Sunday Dari school here in Australia and I found that quite helpful as well, but I guess my reading level is quite that of a primary school kid, so it's just been really nice to just see that and having those words written on my day to day stuff that I consume anyway regardless. So instead of just doom scrolling, I don't know, doing online shopping and looking at dresses, it's really nice to just have a little break from there and go, "Oh, right, that's actually" oh, that's the word for it. In Indonesian I forgot the word for the colour black. I was like: I don't remember what that colour is, and then I thought oh, hitam! That's right. That's the word for it. And I have a wife and I was like I don't know what the word for 'wife' is in Dari and I go, oh, 'Zan'! That's what it is! And going: actually now I know this thing. It is kind of like my memory is being triggered by that interaction there with social media.
But also something else I've been doing is I've been trying to train my partner to speak in Dari as well, just one language at a time, and I don't know, I'm a bit of a nerd here so full disclosure, so we watched 'Dragon Ball Z" and there is this planet called Namek and my partner really loves salt and I go, "OK, let me teach you the word for 'salt', which is 'namak', so I was like it sounds quite familiar to 'Namek' and I went, "OK, now every time you want salt" if she goes, "Can you pass me the salt", I go, "Hmm, no. You have to tell me that what's the password?". Namak. Yes.
DR ELAINE LAFORTEZA: Oh, my gosh. That's hilarious, Neda. What's the password! No, that's great. And also because it's so practical. Not the threatening but the way that you can go to something that's really familiar, that you use every day, something that's not a challenge to get to, something that's accessible is really important.
Now, Anne, how about you? What kind of strategies can be implemented?
ANNE CASEY: First, I love that idea of setting your algorithms so that you're exposed to more of the language. That's wonderful, Neda. I guess I do that in a more analogue way. I seek out I suppose poetry really speaking to me, to my heart, so I do seek out poetry, but I find I'm really fluent off the page, so I really love that idea that both Lachlan and Neda said about you really need to listen, like you have to hear the voices, and then when I think about that, that's how it really comes back, you know. Sorry, I've got a frog. And that sort of reminds me of the fact that yes, absolutely, art is a really great way of bringing people back to the language, bringing the language back out to people, and the Irish Film Festival in Australia does that really well. They really seek out Irish language films with subtitles and it's a most beautiful way to experience our language but also to get a sense of the culture and the immersion of that language.
I loved what Lachlan said also about place names because in Ireland place names are sort of based on traditions of place, I think quite like maybe the First Nations approach too, in describing the landscape by reference to legend or to events that have happened there and how the land was formed through that. And because of that because I know so many place names, all those words come back because they have 'dubh' for 'black' or 'cnoc' for hill or 'Cnoc Patrick' because Saint Patrick claimed that hill or whatever.
But in practical terms, I think things like film and actually one of my poems, I did do a sort of a video film of it with I spoke the poem in Irish and then had the English subtitles and then I spoke an English translation of the poem with Irish subtitles and I also had it filmed at the location that inspired the poem. So I felt like that was kind of an immersion in both the language and what it inspired me to return to the language.
And Elaine, like you, I have failed with my children. It is a very ancient language and it is very difficult. There's four consonants in the middle of words and they don't look like anything that they sound like. So it is very difficult. However, Irish is on Duolingo and that has inspired my younger son to try and take it up. So I do think technology has a big piece of the pie, particularly with younger people. I do wish we had face to face classes. Lachlan, I agree with you, getting kids young and inspiring them through immersionary ideas and maybe a little bit of blackmail like Neda did as well!
DR ELAINE LAFORTEZA: Let's just count ourselves as tireless workers in trying to teach our children language. And I think gamefying education in that respect, especially like with younger people, like what Duolingo does is very innovative. I am going to go to another audience question, and we are running out of time so this might be our last one. Do you believe Indigenous languages will be revitalised to a level that the general Australian public will learn them? And that's from Suzy. Thank you, Suzy, for that question. I'll pose that to Lachlan please.
LACHLAN McDANIEL: Sure. I think there can be. There is this notion that most Indigenous languages are extinct, and I caution against using the term "extinct". I think that they go dormant and that these languages can be revitalised. Will it get to the point where most Australians are speaking an Indigenous language? I mean, that's up to non Indigenous Australians really. If non Indigenous Australians want to learn a language and want to have the language returned to that level, absolutely, that's possible and it can be done and it's been demonstrated that it can be done. But that comes down largely to the desire of non Indigenous Australians.
DR ELAINE LAFORTEZA: Thank you so much, Lachlan. Yes, it is a lot to do with support from outside the community. Maybe we have time for this last question and I'll ask Anne. Do you feel that as a multilingual person and writer living in a very multicultural country, you would like to see more interest from publishers in publishing in languages other than English?
ANNE CASEY: Well, of course, but I do think we're seeing that. And I think there's been a real movement by First Nations poets and writers here to integrate parts of their language into their art, into their poetry, into their writing, and that's been a huge inspiration for me and I think it's also a really wonderful way of exposing people who wouldn't otherwise be exposed to those words and that language. But I also hope that those particular pieces of writing and poems become part of the curriculum so that children can be exposed to the languages through school, and I think also I do feel schools have a part to play maybe as part of their acknowledgments they could use words from if that's appropriate, you know, with respect, and with appropriate permissions, maybe integrate some words of the language of the peoples of their area into their acknowledgments. Did I kind of answer that? I kind of wandered off.
DR ELAINE LAFORTEZA: No, thank you so much, Anne, and thank you so much to our audience members who gave us those thoughtful questions. We are at the end of our time together, but before we officially close the event, we'd love to get your feedback on what you've learnt and what you got out of today's webinar. I can say, like I've said before, (speaks a Filipino language), which means "I enjoyed it", so that's feedback from myself, but I'd love feedback from people other than myself. So we'd really appreciate it if you could take the next couple of minutes to complete a feedback survey, and the feedback link is posted in the chat now.
I can also say to all of you here in my mother tongues, maraming salamat, which is 'thank you' in Tagalog, and agyamanak, which is 'thank you' in Ilocano. Thank you very much to Lachlan, to Anne, to Neda and to everyone who took the time to attend today and to those who registered for the video recording after. But, most of all, thank you maraming salamat, agyamanak to everyone who celebrates, supports and champions linguistic diversity and the preservation and power of our mother tongues.
So I hope you can see the link on our chat for our evaluation and it will also be emailed to you with the video recording as well. But for now, thank you, everyone, and happy International Mother Language Day. Speak it loud and speak it proud. Oh, look at all the thank yous, everyone. Oh, maraming salamat. I'll read some out to you: "Thank you to all the panelists and Elaine for your brilliant insights and thank you to Lachlan's cat for making a background cameo!" Oh, that's perfect!
LACHLAN McDANIEL: It can only be contained in the other room for so long.
DR ELAINE LAFORTEZA: You did very well. Oh, that's beautiful and I can see some people writing in language too to say thank you. Thank you, everyone. I'm not sure if the link for the chat is there, but if not, we will be emailing it out with the video recording. Again, maraming salamat, grazie, grazie. Oh, yes, so many Filipinos. Woo hoo! Merci. There we go. I'm doing Duolingo to try to learn French. Yes, OK. So here it is, and on the chat we'd love to hear your feedback on today's event. So please take the next couple of minutes to complete our feedback survey. While people are doing that, and if people are still on the line, do we have a word or a phrase to share in our mother tongue. Do you have any, Neda?
NEDA DOWLING: I do. I do. So there's this word that I really, really love but I've never found an equivalent in English. It's a Bahasa word and it's basically = have you ever had an experience where you see something that is really cute, like a cute puppy, a cute baby, and you just get that cuteness aggression and you're like, "Oh, my gosh, you're so cute", like that feeling. There's no word for it in English, so I've started teaching all my friends and family. The word is 'gemus'. It's like you feel so gemus. So now my partner and I, we always go, "Oh, my gosh, I feel so gemus", looking at our puppies. We're like, "You're so gemus!". Now I can look at Elaine and go, "Oh, my god, Elaine is so gemus!".
DR ELAINE LAFORTEZA: We have something similar, which is (Tagalog word) 'gigil', which is more the feeling of being overwhelmed by cuteness, which is how I feel with my kids sometimes, often times! How about you, Lachlan? Can you share a word or a phrase in your mother language, and I will invite people who are still with us to write it down in the chat as well.
LACHLAN McDANIEL: Yes. So a fun thing about the Wiradjuri language is it has a lot of onomatopoeia, so words that sound like the things that they're describing. So when colonisation started, people encountered horses for the first time and they created the word 'yarraman', and 'yarraman' is the sound of a galloping horse yarraman, yarraman, yarraman. So I found that that was a cute little word when I found out about it.
DR ELAINE LAFORTEZA: It sounds like it what is. That's really cool.
LACHLAN McDANIEL: Yes. Exactly. So a lot of words so 'kookaburra' comes from 'gugubarra', and 'gugubarra' is meant to be the sound of a kookaburra making its noise. Gugubarra. So there's a lot of onomatopoeia.
DR ELAINE LAFORTEZA: How about those, Anne?
ANNE CASEY: I can't in any way compete with that. We do have over 300 ways of saying 'rain' because it is Ireland! I won't bore you with those. I thought I would give you a blessing. It's a parting blessing, which is 'Sláin', which means 'health'. So it's wishing you health and safety. And if you're ever going out with an Irish person to socialise, you can just lengthen that to 'Sláinte', which is 'cheers'.
DR ELAINE LAFORTEZA: Sláinte! Oh, I just have water, everyone. But good health to all of you and thank you again for being here and celebrating all our mother tongues, whatever we speak. I celebrate them with you. So thank you very much and that is the end of our webinar. Oh, hold on. Is it the end? "This isn't one word but my kids always say that I use colloquial Bangla when I'm not happy"! Oh, my kids can relate because I do discipline in Ilocano. I don't know what that says. And I leave you with that. Thank you, everyone, and I hope you have a wonderful day. Bye.
If you are interested in hearing about future events please contact mwn@uts.edu.au.
Languages encapsulate concepts, ideas, and worldviews – that’s a large reason why during colonisation we see the attempt of the eradication of languages. Retaining and teaching these languages teaches different world views and can have a very significant impact on people – Lachlan McDaniel
I grew up fluent in Irish and it was so culturally important to us. For me it’s about reclaiming the voices of my grandparents who suffered deep political violence. It’s both deeply personal but also a political act to keep this language alive. – Anne Casey
When a language hasn’t been spoken – for me, close to 10 years – you tend to lose a part of that identity. You not only lose the words, but you also lose that identity. – Neda Dowling
International Mother Language Day is a joyful day because we are talking about resistance, continuity, and paying homage to our heritage. – Dr Elaine Laforteza
Speakers
Lachlan McDaniel belongs to the Galari Clan of the Wiradjuri Nation and is learning the Wiradjuri language. Lachlan’s PhD explores the significance of Wiradjuri cultural revitalisation, including how the revitalisation of the Wiradjuri language impacts the socio-political status of the Wiradjuri people in Australia. It also explores the significance of Wiradjuri cultural revitalisation on Wiradjuri aspirations for self-determination.
Anne Casey has worked for 30 years as a journalist, media communications director and legal author. She is also an internationally award-winning poet. Anne's work is widely published, ranking in The Irish Times' Most-Read and winning awards including the American Writers Review Prize and the Henry Lawson Prize. Anne’s doctoral work at UTS explores decolonising lost histories through poetics of resistance.
Neda Dowling is an advocate for social justice and equality and is passionate about addressing the challenges faced by asylum seekers and refugees, while promoting inclusivity for the LGBTQIA+ community. Neda works at the UTS Human Technology Institute, facilitating research and collaboration to bridge the gap between technology and humanitarian efforts for a human-centred world.
Dr Elaine Laforteza is the Equity and Diversity Project Officer (Cultural Diversity) at UTS. She has a PhD in Cultural Studies and previously held academic positions in various universities in Australia. Elaine’s work has been published in peer-reviewed academic journals and community media, and she authored the book The Somatechnics of Whiteness and Race. Elaine hosts SBS’s award-winning podcast, My Bilingual Family, and is also an emerging playwright.