Language more precious than land, and Kaurna

According to “Professor pushes to save endangered languages,” Ghil’ad Zuckermann of the University of Adelaide wants to keep the colors black (people) and red (soil) on the Aboriginal flag but replace the color yellow (sun) with pink (tongue) because of the importance of language.

The professor accuses Australia of linguicide and wants the Australian government to commit $100 million (approx. US $100 million) for reviving Australian and Torres Strait languages.

Also discussed in the article is the development of proper nouns in Kaurna (zku), a language whose last native speaker died in 1931 and which was reintroduced in the 1990s or earlier. About 800 proper nouns have been developed such as for places, conferences and buildings. To learn more about Kaurna, visit Kaurna Warra Pintyandi.

Also noted in the article is the loss of Barossa Deutsch, a German dialect once spoken in Southern Australia.

Tags: german dialect, kaurna, proper nouns