PhD scholar Cathy Bow and native speaker of Kunwinjku, Seraine Namundja. Image: Supplied.
The Australian National University (ANU) and Charles Darwin University (CDU) have launched the first university-level course teaching Kunwinjku - an endangered Aboriginal language spoken by the Bininj people of West Arnhem Land in northern Australia. The course is being coordinated by ANU-CDU PhD scholar Cathy Bow in collaboration with the Bininj Kunwok Regional Language Centre. Ms Bow said the course is a positive step forward for Kunwinjku which is under threat from the increased usage of English and Kriol - an emerging Aboriginal language with a largely English vocabulary. According to 2016 Census data there are just 1,711 people who speak Kunwinjku at home. Ms Bow said the new course is an important way of sharing the Indigenous culture of West Arnhem Land where many non-Indigenous people work in this region, but very few learn the first language of the local people. "Many Australians don't have a sense of the value of language to Indigenous people," she said. "It's more than a means of communication, it is actually about identity, land, law and all aspects of who they are.
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