What is lost when indigenous Australian use standard English - Essay Example

What is lost when indigenous Australian use Standard English? When colonization of lands by foreign forces occur, all or maximum aspects that are indigenous to those lands could be impacted. Impacted in the sense, they could be wiped out or altered, or even reformed, and that is applicable to the languages spoken by the Aboriginal people in Australia. As Australia was colonized by the British forces in the early centuries, English became the prominent language with the Aborigines also prominently using it (or were forced to use it), and in the process undermining their own languages.

Due to this undermining and use of ‘Standard’ English, key aspects of indigenous Australians particularly environment related aspects were lost. “Standard” Australian English is the term used to refer to a derivative of a dialect, spoken in the southeast of the United Kingdom, which became the standard or basic English spoken in Australia. “The fact this dialect derivative became the language of formal education in Australia, a continent with once over 600 languages from 250 language groups, is not a matter of linguistics but a legacy of politics and power.

” (Whitehouse, 2011, pg.59). This role of politics and power is visible in the diminishment of various indigenous languages throughout the world, including in Australia. When this diminishment of languages occurs, many related as well as the encompassing aspects of those languages including culture of the people, words and the context in which they are used, etc., are also lost. “Every language encapsulates its cultural knowledge with its own unique structures of grammar and vocabulary. To lose the beauty of the linguistic system is to inevitably lose some of the culture.

” (Crace, 2002, pg.2).Among the various aspects, which were lost due to the indigenous Australians’ use of Standard English, one is regarding how they used certain environment related words, particularly their meaning or sub-contexts. For the Aborigines, environment or nature is an integral part of their lives, with every aspect of environment intertwined with their day-to-day living. However, for the European colonists Nature is just a “uniform backdrop to the diversity of ‘our’ cultures [and] as an exploitable resource which cannot answer back” (Whitehouse, 2011, pg.58). Due to this differing perspective, Aborigines’ languages had words for the environmental things, which brought out the emotional attachment they had for those things.

For example, in Djabugay language, “balmba” means habitable country– or wet woodlands in European terms - and “bama balmba” translates to English as a person or people, who are quite at home within these wet woodlands. (Whitehouse, 2011, pg.58). However, with the Aborigines abandoning their native languages like Djabugay and adopting Standard English, all the above discussed traditional and emotional nuances of their languages are getting lost. On the same lines, the English term of “home”, although positively means “warm and suggestive”, it does not match the aboriginal word that may mean ‘camp’, ‘hearth’, ‘country’, everlasting home’, ‘totem place’, ‘life source’, ‘spirit centre’ and all else in one.

’ (Whitehouse, 2011, pg.60). From the above discussion, it is clear that due to Aborigines’ abandoning of their native languages and adoption of Standard English, certain key aspects have been lost. Although, newspapers and other mass media are being brought out in the indigenous languages to promote as well as sustain those languages, it is getting lost or diminished due to the continuous usage of Standard English. (Meadows & Avison, 2000). ReferencesCrace, J. (2002). Higher Education: Language Barriers.

Guardian News & Media Limited.Meadows, M & Avison, S. (2000). Speaking and Hearing: Aboriginal Newspapers and the Public Sphere in Canada and Australia. Canadian Journal of Communications Corporation. Whitehouse, H. (2011). Talking Up Country: Language, Natureculture and Interculture in Australian Environmental Education Research. Australian Journal of Environmental Education, 27(1):56-67.