Language Lost and Regained

As a child living in the Bush around Iron Knob, Whyalla and Port Augusta in South Australia my mother ran through the sandhills playing and talking with her brothers and sisters in their native Barngarla tongue. Life seemed to be happy and free.

Many of these times, however, weren’t always pleasant as they were running from the Big Black Car of the Welfare, coming to take the children away from their family and their home. Mum tells me how she used to gather her younger siblings together and hide them as best she could. This continued for some years until she was 8 years of age when they were caught off guard and separated and taken to mission homes in Port Augusta and Adelaide. They still had their language but no longer had the support and guidance of family to continue to be instructed and to learn their language and culture from their elders.

The government of the time, in their perceived arrogance or possibly misled naivety, outlawed the speaking of Aboriginal languages in government-supported missions for many years and ours was almost completely wiped out. .

In my mother’s case, she was taken to a Brethren-run mission in Port Augusta called Umeewarra Mission. Here my mother was forced not to speak her native Barngarla Tongue, even though she could speak it fluently when she arrived at 8 year old. In the time she spent there she lost her language to a point where she wasn’t able to put a sentence together when she left. The missionaries however did allow singing in language and taught choruses in Aboriginal language but still the children were not to speak their languages on the mission.

Years later mum returned to Umeewarra Mission to find the missionaries talking in Aboriginal Language to the children. When she confronted them, a missionary replied: “We realized that we did the wrong thing”. They were trying to rectify that by promoting the speaking of language on the mission in later years, even against government policy.

That was many years ago and my mother is now in her late 60s but still she can’t put a sentence together of her mother tongue. This, however, may not be the case for much longer.

In 2011 an Israeli linguist, working with Adelaide University and the chair of linguistics and eEndangered languages, Professor Ghil’ad Zuckermann contacted the Barngarla community about helping to revive and reclaim the Barngarla language. This request was eagerly accepted by the Barngarla people and language reclamation workshops began in Port Lincoln, Whyalla and Port Augusta in 2012.

I have just returned home after attending one of these workshops in Port Augusta with my mother who has had a new lease of life and is now confident her language will once again be heard in Barngarla Yarta land.

At the workshop we had a special guest over from Germany, Reverend Volker Dally who is the Director of the Leipzig Mission, which was preceded by the Dresden Mission. The former Dresden and now Leipzig Missions are Lutheran Missions where missionaries are still trained in their trade today.

Rev Dally was our guest of honor as he has a vested interest in our language revival. He comes from the same denomination and missionary school discipline as a man by the name of Reverend Clamor Wilhelm Schrmann and his colleague Christian Teichelmann who 175 years ago came to the Eyre Peninsula. There he came in contact with, taught and also learnt from the Barngarla Yura (or People).

Rev. Schrmann was, apparently, not one to try and force conversion on the people, but lived with and worked amongst the people. Rev Dally told us how the Lutheran Missions in Australia were seen as a failure because of this. Even though there was no mass conversion to Christianity under the Lutheran Missionaries, what they, or in particular Reverend Schrmann, was able to achieve, was to document the language of the people he came in contact with. This is now seen as a success rather than a failure of the missionaries.

The greatest legacy that Rev Schrmann left for the Barngarla Yura was that, in 1844, he went to great lengths to document and create a dictionary of the Barngarla Language.

Some 169 years after the initial recording of the Barngarla language, the government, possibly in an attempt to make amends for the policies that took away the language from the people, have now agreed to fund the language reclamation workshops for a further 3 years, and bring back a pride in the people that was lost with the removal of our native tongue.

Now, with much thanks to Rev Schrmann and people like Professor Zuckermann, as well as the work and dedication of the Barngarla people, young and old, we hope for a revival of our language and to have it heard in homes and even taught in schools in the future.

Not only are we reviving and reclaiming our ancient tongue but we are also adding to the language and bringing it into the future by creating words never heard of, or even thought of, in the past. We have expanded the dictionary with words for things like Computer/Gabiwa and Internet/Irbi Yarnoo. With such additions as these we hope our Ancient language will be able to fit in comfortably with future generations for a long time to come.

Nelson Mandela once said “If you speak to a man in a language he understands, it goes to his head, but, if you speak to a man in his own language, it goes to his heart”. Many thanks to Rev Schrmann and Professor Ghil’ad Zuckermann for their forethought and efforts to keep such a precious language alive, which goes to the heart of every Barngarla Person.

Stephen Atkinson is a Barngarla Aboriginal man.