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Native Tongue Title: Compensation for the Loss of Aboriginal Languages

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Native Tongue Title: Compensation for the Loss of Aboriginal Languages Native Tongue Title: compensation for the loss of Aboriginal languages Ghil’ad Zuckermann The University of Adelaide Shiori Shakuto-Neoh Australian National University Giovanni Matteo Quer Hebrew University of Jerusalem Abstract: This paper proposes the enactment of an ex gratia compensation scheme for loss of Indigenous languages in Australia. Although some Australian states have enacted ex gratia compensation schemes for the victims of the Stolen Generation policies, the victims of ‘linguicide’ (language killing) are largely overlooked by the Australian Government. Existing grant schemes to support Aboriginal languages are inadequate, and they should be complemented with compensation schemes, which are based on a claim of right. The proposed compensation scheme for the loss of Aboriginal languages should support the effort to reclaim and revive the lost languages. We first outline the history of linguicide during colonisation in Australia. We then put a case for reviving lost Aboriginal languages by high- lighting the benefits of language revival. After evaluating the limits of existing Australian law in supporting the language revival efforts, this paper proposes a statute-based ex gratia compensation scheme, which can be colloquially called ‘Native Tongue Title’. Background 2012) have made Australia an unlucky place. Language is an archaeological vehicle, full of These twin forces have been in operation in the remnants of dead and living pasts, lost Australia since the early colonial period, when and buried civilizations and technologies. efforts were made to prevent Aboriginal people The language we speak is a whole palimpsest from continuing to speak their languages in order of human effort and history. (Russell Hoban, to ‘civilize’ them. Anthony Forster, a nineteenth- children’s writer, 1925–2011, in Haffenden century financier and politician, gave voice to 1985:138) a colonial linguicide ideology, which was typi- Linguicide (language killing) and glottophagy cal of much of the attitude towards Australian (language eating; see Zuckermann and Monaghan languages (report on a public meeting of the Australian Aboriginal Studies 2014/1 55 Native Tongue Title Zuckermann, Shakuto-Neoh and Quer South Australian Missionary Society in aid of field of enquiry studying comparatively and system- the German Mission to the Aborigines, Southern atically the universal constraints and global mech- Australian, 8 September 1843, p.2, in Scrimgeour anisms on the one hand (see Zuckermann 2009), 2007:116): and particularistic peculiarities and cultural relativ ist idiosyncrasies on the other, apparent The natives would be sooner civilized if their in linguistic revitalisation attempts across vari- language was extinct. The children taught ous sociological backgrounds, all over the globe would afterwards mix only with whites, (Zuckermann and Walsh 2011). Revivalistics where their own language would be of no use combines scientific studies of native language — the use of their language would preserve acquisition and foreign language learning: their prejudices and debasement, and their language was not sufficient to express the language reclamation is the most extreme case of ideas of civilized life. foreign language learning. This paper explores the legal dimensions of Even Governor of South Australia George Grey, Revivalistics in Australia. It reiterates the bene- who was relatively pro-Aboriginal, appeared to fits of language revival for Australia and for the share this opinion and remarked in his journal Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, that ‘the ruder languages disappear successively, and proposes an enactment of new legislation to and the tongue of England alone is heard around’ compensate for the lost Aboriginal languages. (Grey 1841:200–01). What was seen as a civilis- The proposed legislation can be colloquially ing process was actually the traumatic death of called Native Tongue Title, modelled upon the various fascinating and multifaceted Aboriginal established concept of Native Title. languages. We acknowledge that Native Title is not a It is not surprising, therefore, that of approx- compensatory mechanism. Native Title is the imately 330 known Aboriginal languages, today legal recognition by Australian law that some only 13 (4 per cent) are spoken natively by chil- Indigenous people have existing and continuing dren. Blatant statements of linguistic imperialism, rights to, and interests in, their land that come such as the ones made by Forster and Grey, now from their traditional laws and customs. After seem to be less frequent, but the processes they the recognition of Native Title, the government describe are nonetheless still active. cannot extinguish their rights to land with- Approximately 7000 languages are current- out compensation. Compensation in relation ly spoken worldwide. The majority of these are to Native Title generally arises when groups spoken by small populations. Approximately have successfully claimed Native Title and then 96 per cent of the world’s population speaks negotiate positive economic terms with mining around 4 per cent of the world’s languages, companies and others who want to take over leaving the vast majority of tongues vulnerable these lands. We believe that we can draw a paral- to extinction and disempowering their speakers. lel with concepts explored in Native Title. We Linguistic diversity reflects many things beyond accidental historical splits. Languages are essen- argue that the Australian Government ought to tial building blocks of community identity and compensate Indigenous people not only for the authority. However, with globalisation of domi- loss of tangible land, but also for the loss of nant cultures, cultures at the periphery will be intangible langue (language). The legislation to marginalised, and this will possibly lead to compensate for the linguicide will recognise the language loss. Language reclamation will become Indigenous peoples’ rights to revive or maintain increasingly relevant as people seek to recover their languages. The compensation money could their cultural autonomy, empower their spiritu- be used to support reclamation and linguistic al and intellectual sovereignty, and improve their empowerment efforts. We hope that the enact- wellbeing. ment of new legislation would help reinstate Revivalistics — including Revival Linguistics Indigenous peoples’ authority and ownership of and Revivalomics — is a new trans- disciplinary their cultural heritage. 56 Australian Aboriginal Studies 2014/1 Zuckermann, Shakuto-Neoh and Quer Native Tongue Title Why should we invest time and money in Thaayorre, a language spoken in Pormpuraaw reviving languages? on the west coast of Cape York, do not use ‘left’ Ethical reasons or ‘right’, but always use cardinal directions (i.e. north, south, east, west). They claim that Kuuk Australia’s languages have not just been dying Thaayorre speakers are constantly aware of where of their own accord; many were destroyed by they are situated and that this use of directions settlers of this land. We owe it to the Aboriginal also affects their awareness of time (Boroditsky and Torres Strait Islander people to support the and Gaby 2010). Language supports different maintenance and revival of their cultural herit- ways of ‘being in the world’. age, in this instance through language revival. To Such cases are abundant around the world. quote Nelson Mandela, ‘if you talk to a man in a Here are some more examples: language he understands, that goes to his head. • Mamihlapinatapai is a word in the Yaghan If you talk to him in his language, that goes to language of Tierra del Fuego in Chile and his heart.’ According to the international law of Argentina. It refers to ‘a look shared by two human rights, persons belonging to ethnic, reli- people, each wishing that the other will offer gious or linguistic minorities have the right to something that they both desire but have been use their own language (Article (art.) 27 of the unwilling to suggest or offer themselves’. This International Covenant on Civil and Political word can be broken down into smaller parts, Rights). Thus every person has the right to express or morphemes, thus ma- is a reflexive/passive themselves in the language of their ancestors, not prefix (realised as the allomorph mam- before just in the language of convenience that English a vowel); ihlapi ‘to be at a loss as what to do has become. next’; -n, stative suffix;ata , achievement suffix; Through supporting language revival, we and -apai, a dual suffix, which has a reciprocal can appreciate the significance of Indigenous sense with ma- (circumfix). languages and recognise their importance to • Ancient Persian nakhur is a ‘camel that will not Indigenous people and to Australia. We can then give milk until her nostrils have been tickled’. right some small part of the wrong against the Clearly, camels are very important in this soci- original inhabitants of this country and support ety and survival may have historically depended the wishes of their ancestors with the help of on camel milk. linguistic knowledge. • Tingo, in Rapa Nui (Pasquan) of Easter Island (Eastern Polynesian language), is ‘to take all the Aesthetic reasons objects one desires from the house of a friend, The linguist Ken Hale, who worked with many one at a time, by asking to borrow them, until endangered languages and saw the effect of loss of there is nothing left’ (De Boinod 2005). language, compared losing language to bombing the Louvre: ‘When
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