Language and Aboriginal Culture in Australia

At the opening ceremony of the 50 years celebration of the UN in 1995, Paul Keating, the former Prime Minister of Australia included the topic of language in his speech on cultural diversity, ‘multiculturalism … a policy for managing the consequences of that diversity in the interest of all. This means a policy which guarantees rights and imposes responsibilities. The rights include those of cultural identity – the right to express and share individual cultural heritage, including language and religion.’ (ibid., 2000, 67) The necessity to preserve cultural diversity has already been expressed in the UNESCO’s ‘Declaration of the Principles of International Cultural Co-operation’ (Article 1) in 1966: 1. ‘Each culture has a dignity and value which must be respected and preserved. 2. Every people has the right and the duty to develop its culture. 3. In their rich variety and diversity, and in the reciprocal influences they exert on one another, all cultures form part of the common heritage belonging to all mankind.’ (quoted in ibid., 68) As can be seen, it was realized decades ago, that the biological and cultural environment, with its specific diversity all living things participate in, is to a large extent seriously threatened. However, the importance of language, as a not replaceable contribution to this diversity, was ignored for a long time. 3.2.2 The interdependency of biodiversity, cultural and linguistic diversity [...]

Einar Haugen, a Norwegian born linguist, who immigrated with his family to the USA, was the first to deliver a definition of language ecology. ‘Language ecology may be defined as the study of interaction between any given language and its environment. The definition of environment might lead one’s thought first of all to the referential world to which language provides an index. However, this is the environment not of the language but of its lexicon and grammar. The true environment of a language is the society that uses it as one of its codes.’ (1972, 325) He was among the first to detect a parallel between the life of animals and plants in their natural environment and the life of a language in a surrounding society. Fill describes the sense of an ‘Ecology of Language’ in the present time in the following way: ‘[It is] urgently needed at a time when languages are disappearing faster and faster from decade to decade, and one would wish that more linguists were to take it up and embrace the cause of linguistic diversity. The task of investigating, documenting and perhaps saving the many endangered languages on this planet would be worth the while of more aspiring newcomers to ecolinguistics.’ (1998, 5) 3.2 Ecology of language [...]

Two factors have mainly contributed to the dominating role of the English language in the world these days: British Colonialism, with its peak at the end of the 19th century, and the USA’s economic power in the 20th century. But it has to be marked that, although Britain was one of the ruling powers of the 19th century, the English language was not necessarily seen as a language worth speaking. Prior to the peace talks of Versailles after World War I, French was the unchallenged international language of diplomacy, and the Frenchmen eyed the upgrading of the English language in the Treaty of Versailles rather suspiciously. However, since WW I, English undoubtedly has become the dominating language of the world. David Crystal (1992, 54) provides us with a model, which shows us the [...]