1 Keynote Speaker LANGUAGE IS MORE THAN COMMUNICATION: WHY WE SHOULD MAINTAIN the MOTHER TONGUE and PROMOTE LINGUISTIC DIVERSITY

Keynote Speaker

LANGUAGE IS MORE THAN COMMUNICATION: WHY WE SHOULD MAINTAIN THE MOTHER TONGUE AND PROMOTE LINGUISTIC DIVERSITY

Rob Amery

Linguistics Department, School of Humanities, University of Adelaide, South Australia, Australia

Abstract Language is commonly thought of as a means of communication and only as a means of communication, in the narrow sense of the word. Many English-speaking countries expect the rest of the World to learn and speak English and fail to consider a need for any other language. And there is a growing trend in countries like Indonesia, to see the national language as sufficient for all internal purposes, supplemented by English for higher education and international purposes (trade, tourism, diplomacy etc.). Little attention is paid to ethnic, minority, Indigenous or local languages, and their contribution is not highly valued. So why should we care about this latter group of languages, that are neither national or international languages, even though some, like Javanese or Telegu, are actually very large languages. This presentation will explore reasons why local languages are important and why they should be supported. One’s own language is key to identity. Each language is a storehouse of knowledge with its own genius and specific areas of elaboration. Each language embodies a particular worldview and cannot be fully captured through translation into another. It’s maintenance or revival has implications for the development of self-esteem, cultural pride, participation and performance in education and contributes to health and well-being.

Keywords: Indigenous languages, local languages, endangered languages, minority languages, linguistic diversity, language shift.

INTRODUCTION In this the United Nations International Year of Indigenous Languages, it is fitting that we turn our attention to consider why we should maintain local, Indigenous languages and why we should promote linguistic diversity. Language shift is accelerating at an unprecedented rate with the resultant loss of vast numbers of languages (Krauss; 1992, Dixon, 1991; Evans, 2009). We all use language to impart information, share our feelings and ideas, negotiate, consult, instruct and for numerous other speech acts known collectively as communication. For some, that is all they might think language is for: as a means, and a very effective means, to communicate with each other. But language is so much more than this.

THE GENIUS OF LANGUAGE Different Languages are not simply different versions of each other. We can’t simply substitute a different set of words and language structures (i.e. translation) to convey precisely the same meaning. Language is more complex than that. Each language has its own genius, its own particular way of carving up and labelling the world. In many cases there is no simple one-to-one correspondence between the words of one language and the words of another. Let’s take kinship, for example. We might think that languages should share many properties here. After all, everyone has a biological mother and a biological father, as well as four grandparents, and most people have siblings etc. However, if we draw comparisons between the kinship terminologies of the Yolŋu of northeast Arnhemland in the North of Australia and English, we find that not one term has a precise counterpart in the other language. Why should this be the case?

LANGUAGE IS MORE THAN COMMUNICATION: WHY WE SHOULD MAINTAIN THE MOTHER TONGUE AND PROMOTE LINGUISTIC DIVERSITY by Rob Amery

The closest counterpart to ‘mother’ in Yolŋu Matha is ŋändi or ŋama’. But these terms also refer to the mother’s sisters through the principle of ‘equivalence of same sex siblings’ and to even more distant kin such as ‘daughter’s son’s daughter’ and ‘wife’s brother’s wife’s mother’ or ‘wife’s brother’s daughter’ and so on (see Cooke, 1990). In English, an individual has just one mother and one father, but not so in Yolŋu society. In addition, there are basic kin terms within the Yolŋu system that have no easy equivalent term in English. Take ŋathiwalkur, for instance. Ŋathiwalkur could be conceived of as ‘mother’s brother’s wife’s mother’s brother’ or ‘mother’s mother’s brother’s wife’s brother’. Yolŋu Matha has some 24 basic kin terms compared with 15 in English (if we include the grandparent and grandchildren terms). We can add to this terms used by someone else to describe a relationship that a person has to the speaker, a suite of avoidance terms and bereavement terms (we can only manage orphan, widow and widower in English) (see Galpagalpa et al, 1984). Kaurna from Adelaide has an additional suite of terms to refer to deceased kin (e.g. kutarri ‘a late Elder sister’ as opposed to yakana ‘elder sister’. Let’s take another simple example. Every human with reasonable eyesight who has ever lived on earth has been aware of the ‘sun’ and the ‘moon’, so it is to be expected that every language should have a term for ‘sun’ and ‘moon’. Indeed, it is probably a reasonable assumption that these terms are universal. But these terms certainly do not have the same cultural associations or extended meanings in every language. Australian languages typically extend the meaning of the word for ‘sun’ to ‘day’, ‘time’, ‘clock’ etc. What’s more, the ‘sun’ and ‘moon’ have opposite genders to each other. In some Indigenous Australian cultures the ‘sun’ is male, whilst in others it is female, but if the ‘sun’ is male then the moon will be female within that culture. The ‘sun’ and the ‘moon’ play central roles within many Dreaming narratives for Indigenous Australians. In many languages the word for ‘moon’ also means ‘month’, just as it does in Bahasa Indonesia. But in English of course, the word ‘month’ is derived from ‘moon’. And English makes the association of lunatic and lunacy with lunar, an adjective relating to the moon. Not so long ago, there was just one ‘sun’ and one ‘moon’, but consider how the conceptualisation of these words has changed with advances in astronomy and astro-physics. We are now aware that stars are suns and that other planets also have moons. According to NASA, Jupiter is now thought to have 79 moons with 53 of them already bearing names and another 26 awaiting official names (https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/moons/jupiter-moons/overview). So, in fact we now know that there are countless numbers of suns and there must also be countless numbers of moons in the universe. As a result, the modern concepts of ‘sun’ and ‘moon’, whilst being essentially the same as in days gone by, now have an added dimension. So things are not quite so simple and straightforward as they might appear at first glance. In our initial survey of the languages of Pulau Simeulue and Pulau Banyak, Pak Zulfadli Aziz and I became aware of some interesting lexical issues. In Devayan there are two words for ‘red’. We are not talking about different shades of red, but rather precisely the same colour from the perspective of other languages. In Devayan, bala ‘red’ refers to a compact and consolidated red as on the Indonesian flag whereas afala ‘red’ refers to a distributed red, for example ripe red fruit on a tree or red writing on a book. I am not aware of any other language making this kind of distinction. We found that in Sigulai, lumalangi is a reasonable equivalent for English ‘swim’ and is what people, buffalos, crocodiles, snakes and turtles do when they are immersed in a body of water, except that fish do not lumalangi. Rather, fish mofanɯ which usually means ‘walk’ or ‘run’. When Sigulai speakers are asked for an explanation, they say it is because fish don’t have any choice. We also found a distinction between dadaw ‘to sit on the floor’ and tataw ‘to sit on a chair’ in Sigulai. Local languages are typically best equipped to talk about the local environment including landforms, weather phenomena, fauna and flora. In these domains they may leave languages like English and Indonesian appearing impoverished, despite their huge lexicons. For instance, the Kaurna language of Adelaide has distinct terms tarnta ‘male red kangaroo’, kurlu ‘female red kangaroo’, nantu ‘male grey kangaroo’, wauwi ‘female grey kangaroo’, tarka ‘sp. of large kangaroo’ (perhaps the ‘euro’), wailtyi ‘sp. of large kangaroo’, kurtaka ‘young kangaroo’, kardi ‘male emu’, taitya ‘female emu’ and so on. Yolŋu Matha has a plethora of terms for different species of sharks and rays. Galpagalpa et al (1984, pp. 73-83) list some 66 terms (including some used only in song). Unlike English terms in this domain, which are almost all compounds (e.g. hammerhead shark, tiger shark, grey nurse shark, shovelnose ray etc) the Yolŋu terms are distinct lexemes which, with few exceptions, bear no relationship to other words. Clearly much more work is yet to be done in these areas to document the full Yolŋu lexicon. In our investigation of the languages of Pulau Simeulue and Pulau Banyak Pak Zulfadli Aziz and I found rich lexicons for talking about coconuts and cloves, including distinctive terms for referring to one

Proceedings of the 2nd English Education International Conference (EEIC) in conjunction with the 9th Annual International Conference (AIC), Universitas Syiah Kuala, September 18-19, 2019, Banda Aceh, Indonesia ISSN: 2527-8037 and a half coconuts and two and a half coconuts. We also observed very complex systems of counting where not only does the classifier change, but the very number itself is different depending on what is being enumerated (Amery & Aziz, forthcoming). For instance, in Devayan we have atao ‘four’ when just counting (one, two, three, four etc) but dahat when counting people, akasiha when counting animals, atao when counting fruits, ampek when counting thin flat objects, etc. What gets encoded within the grammar can vary enormously. English and other European languages and Australian Aboriginal languages pay close attention to tense. Some languages, including Guarani from Paraguay and the Australian languages Kayardild and Lardil, even mark tense on nouns (Nordlinger & Sadler, 2004). However tense is not grammaticalised in Indonesian, Vietnamese and many other languages. Curiously, Bahasa Bima marks tense through the placement of pronominal clitics but only in positive polarity. Negated verbs are tenseless. Prefixing of the pronominal clitic indicates future tense, whilst suffixation of the clitic together with the prefix ra- indicates past tense (Mulyawan et al, 2016). Gender is important in European languages such as German, French, Italian and Latin, but not in Indonesian or in Australian Aboriginal languages. Pronouns in many Australian Aboriginal languages are distinguished by their case role (Ergative, Nominative, Accusative, Dative, Ablative, Comitative, Possessive etc, but also by the number: singular, dual, (and sometimes trial and quartal) and plural resulting in an exceptionally large number of pronominal forms. Some Austronesian languages in Taiwan, including Kavalan, Truku Seediq, Paiwan and Thao, even grammaticalise odour or smell through the use of a prefix in combination with reduplication (Lee, 2010). In fact, languages exhibit so much variation that counterexamples have been found for almost every language universal ever put forward (see Evans & Levinson, 2009). Language is indexical of one’s region of origin, of one’s language socialisation, social class, education, occupation, age, gender, perhaps religious affiliation and so on. Languages like Javanese have especially rich speech levels Ngoko, Madya, Krama and Krama Inggil, the use of which establishes and maintains status differences between different classes of people. Some Australian Aboriginal languages, such as Dyirbal from northeast Queensland, have varieties that employ a different lexicon entirely, somewhat akin in form to the Javanese speech levels, that are employed when talking to kin, such as the mother-in- law, who are in an avoidance relationship to the speaker (Dixon, 1982, pp. 65-68).

LANGUAGE AND IDENTITY For speakers of majority languages such as English, language is perhaps not nearly as salient in identity formation as it is for many minorities. Even so, language reveals so much about the individual. For the Yolŋu of North-east Arnhemland in the Northern Territory of Australia it is knowledge of the manikay ‘songs’ which is paramount. So long as the manikay are still being sung Yolŋu feel strong and confident in themselves and their future. There is an inextricably linked bundle between manikay, buŋgul ‘ceremony’, wäŋa ‘land’, rom ‘law’, bäpurru ‘clan’, gurrutu ‘kinship’ and dhäruk ‘language’. Knowledge of manikay in turn imparts knowledge of wäŋa, or waŋarr ‘creator ancestors’ and of rom ‘law’ etc. And of course this is all mediated through language. It would be difficult for Yolŋu to conceive of a Yolŋu person who does not speak Yolŋu Matha. On the other hand it is quite possible (indeed likely) to be Irish and not be able to speak Gaelic. The role that the traditional Gaelic language played in Irish identity has perhaps now been filled by a distinctive Irish accent of English. How important is it for Acehnese people to be able to speak Bahasa Aceh? Can you think of yourself as Acehnese and only be able to speak Indonesian and English, that is have no knowledge of the Acehnese language? What are the most important contributors to Acehnese identity? Adherence to the principles and practice of Islam? Acehnese dance (Tari Saman etc)? Acehnese cuisine? Traditional wedding ceremonies? Where does the Acehnese language figure amongst these values and practices where there are early signs that Acehnese youth are beginning to turn their back on the language seeing Indonesian and English as embodying modernity and Acehnese as being perhaps backward and anachronistic. I have just taken on a new student who will investigate these matters. For Aboriginal peoples in southern and Eastern Australia who bore the brunt of colonisation in the late 18th and 19th centuries and lived through the assimilationist era up until 1967 they regard their languages as having been stolen from them. A great many of these language groups are now engaged in programs that are attempting to revive and re-introduce these languages, often on the basis is slender historical records. In Australia, the earliest language revival movements began to emerge in the early 1980s (see Amery & Gale, 2008 for a history of language revival in Australia). In these regions of Australia, figures of those who claim to speak Aboriginal languages at home are somewhat inflated. There are a

LANGUAGE IS MORE THAN COMMUNICATION: WHY WE SHOULD MAINTAIN THE MOTHER TONGUE AND PROMOTE LINGUISTIC DIVERSITY by Rob Amery mere handful of people who can conduct even a limited conversation in Kaurna, yet 58 claimed to speak Kaurna at home in the 2011 census up, from 29 in 2001. Aboriginal people is ‘settled’ Australia are proud to claim their ability to speak the language even though in many cases they may only know a few words. Even a knowledge of the language name itself might suffice. In many language revival situations, languages have lost their communicative functions entirely having been relegated to the archive. People affiliated to these languages, that is their owners and custodians, may have been speaking English and only English for several generations. In these situations, emblematic functions are re-introduced first in the process of getting the languages back. This includes welcome to country speeches, incorporation of the language into dance performance, the naming of people, pets, places, buildings, rooms, events and so on, and the incorporation of text into works of art, sometimes without translation, so that members of the public have little or no chance of understanding it. It is there as an emblem. Communication, in the narrow sense, may be absent altogether.

LANGUAGE AND WELL-BEING Recent studies in both Canada and Australia (Biddle, 2014; Biddle & Swee, 2012; Hallet et al, 2007; Yap & Yu, 2016) are showing positive links between speaking an ancestral language and health and wellbeing. Maintaining a strong language in remote Australia is “associated with markedly superior health and lower likelihoods of abusing alcohol” (Dockery, 2011, p. 10) even though access to pharmaceuticals and health services is much more limited in these regions. In language revival contexts, reconnecting with one’s ancestral language and culture has been transformative for some individuals, building self-esteem and offering a renewed sense of purpose. Teaching one’s own language in schools, designing and producing language resources, giving welcome to country speeches and so on can provide culturally-affirming employment. Investment in language maintenance and language revival programs is money well-spent. Keeping a troubled person out of jail or allaying an acute mental health condition in Australia saves in excess of $100,000 per year. Turning someone’s life around impacts positively on those around them, on their immediate family (especially the children in the next generation) but also on wider society. There are important gains for the individual in maintaining a healthy bilingualism or multilingualism. Some studies show that multilingualism staves off Alzheimer’s disease by establishing a cognitive reserve (Craik et al, 2010). It stands to reason that the more typologically diverse those languages are in the multilingual repertoire of the individual, the more powerful this effect might be. If we just encourage our children to maintain their mother tongue, then we are doing those children a big favour.

WHAT DO WE LOSE WHEN A LANGUAGE DIES? Language embodies culture and transmits culture from one generation to then next. Each and every language encodes a particular view of the world, a way of life, knowledge of the environment, weather patterns, medicinal plants etc. that have developed over centuries or thousands of years. By virtue of the structure of a language, speakers attend to different aspects of the situation. It is not so much a matter of what you can say in a language, but what you must say. When a language dies we not only lose different knowledge systems and unique grammatical structures, but also elaborate ways of speaking. Each language has its own set of fixed expressions, metaphors and idioms which greatly enrich that language, but are notoriously difficult to translate. The resultant translation often comes across as very bland by comparison with the original.

CONCLUSIONS Local, Indigenous, minority, heritage and ethnic languages are all part of the rich tapestry of human language, alongside large international and national languages. Their contribution is often overlooked in a world where a small number of languages continue to displace and marginalise others owing to the priviledges accorded to them by virtue of them having the status of official, national and international languages and resultant education and other policies. English is gaining ascendency over all other languages with the possible exception of Mandarin Chinese, whilst other national languages, such as Indonesian are becoming more and more powerful within their regions. But we have seen that the languages with lesser status have power and beauty in their own right and are worthy of being maintained and revived for a range of intelectual, aesthetic and very practical reasons. A knowledge of classical languages, such as Latin and Sanskrit, help us fully understand and appreciate the larger languages such as English and Indonesian. Each language has its own role to play within the larger

Proceedings of the 2nd English Education International Conference (EEIC) in conjunction with the 9th Annual International Conference (AIC), Universitas Syiah Kuala, September 18-19, 2019, Banda Aceh, Indonesia ISSN: 2527-8037 language ecology. But so much remains to be done to ensure that the world’s 7,000 or so languages are documented and continue to be spoken and supported.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to acknowledge the people of Pulau Simeulue and Pulau Banyak for sharing just a little of their languages with me and the efforts of my colleague, Assoc. Prof. Zulfadli Aziz, Ibu Sitti and Pak Jamal in helping to collect and record some of that data. I also acknowledge the Yolŋu people of Yirrkala and Galiwin’ku with whom I worked in the 1980s who shared their language with me and the Kaurna people of Adelaide with whom I have been working for the last 30 years to reclaim and reintroduce their language.

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