AustLit

'Across the state of New South Wales (NSW) a number of language rebuilding (LRB) efforts are currently underway.2 We use the term LRB to refer to development of a communicative, spoken form of a language that is no longer used to any substantial extent, based on prior written and audio-recorded records. Several other terms are used for this process, including ‘language revival’ (Walsh 2005), ‘language reclamation’ (Leonard 2007; McCarty 2003) or, more imaginatively, ‘awakening sleeping languages’ (Hinton & Hale 2001). Whatever term is used, it only begins to direct our attention to the complex intergenerational task that underpins the revitalisation of Australia’s ancestral languages. One of the contentious issues addressed through the rebuilding process is that, to be representative of aspirations of Aboriginal communities, the resulting languages need to be both epistemologically true to their traditions and open to new concepts and realities beyond what was recorded, or conceived by traditional speakers.'  (Introduction)