International Year of Indigenous Languages: Complexities of celebration (Advocate 26 01)

In the International Year of Indigenous Languages, I yearn for more. More talking with Elders, more family, more Country, more story, more relational voice to the world, more of our own languages in the everyday. And yet I know this year will be no different unless things drastically change. Not in terms of voices to parliament or closing gaps, but in terms of the everyday lived experience of our children. These changes must shift the way we make meaning and experience life. This is personal, this is intergenerational. For real change I must transform my own life within my family, in the city, because it is the Western meaning making systems that raise and bind our children into this society, this shared reality. More...