Indigenous language dictionary launched

A remote community in Western Australia’s Murchison region hopes an Indigenous language dictionary will encourage the younger generation of Wajarri people to learn more about their traditional language and culture.

The Wajarri language dictionary was released last week at a ceremony in the Murchison Settlement.

Vaso Elefsiniotis worked as a linguist in the community during the making of the dictionary and hopes it will bring more Wajarri language teachers to mid-west schools.

“So as those teachers leave and do something else, that language program is not sustainable in the schools, so hopefully what I’d like to see is that something like a dictionary, you’ve got a really important tool to encourage people to put their hand up to be teachers.”