By Helen Musa

The 13th annual International Mother Language Day Walk around Lake Burley Griffin will be held on February 21.

A long-time friend of the walk is Ngunnawal Elder Caroline Hughes, who over the years has performed the event’s Welcome to Country.

Dr Hughes is acutely aware of the importance of mother languages, telling me that preserving and revitalising the Ngunnawal language is “helping us to breathe the breath, that’s what we say”.

Now chair of the Winanggaay Ngunnawal Language Aboriginal Corporation, she says that there’s not a huge amount to go on, although the known vocabulary has now expanded to around 3000 words.

Happily, although Ngunnawal is related to sister languages Yuin, Ngarigo and Gundungurra, it now has a speech grammar of its own, meaning there has been no need to reach outside.

This extraordinary grammar has been developed by professional linguists Louise Baird and Doug Marmion, working closely with the Ngunnawal community and supported by the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies.

Dr Hughes estimates it may take the better part of 50 years for speakers to achieve full fluency, but she remains optimistic. The committee is now focused on engaging a new linguist, with a view to developing a formal dictionary.

She believes more community-based workshops will help people achieve facility and confidence, and Ngunnawal classes continue weekly, facilitated by workshop educators Melissa Bell and Rebecca King.

While she would not describe it as a roadblock, one of the challenges has been that local Aboriginal languages do not have plurals. An ingenious solution has been developed, where, for example, the singular word balaarn becomes balaarnjima, meaning more than two women.

For Dr Hughes, strengthening mother languages is vital.

“Our language is something that carries our heritage and our worldview, as well as our knowledge of Country, culture and our ancestors,” she says. 

“It is a basic human right. Language holds the stories and the understanding of our land, our water, our ways and our seasons. It is about how we take care of the generations that follow.”

It hardly needs to be said that the history of banning First Nations languages in Australia has been devastating, but there is hope.

“When language is spoken, it is not just remembered, it is lived,” Dr Hughes says.

February 21 has been proclaimed International Mother Language Day by UNESCO in recognition of an incident in 1952, when Bengali-speaking university students in what is now Bangladesh were shot for using their mother tongue.

From such tragic beginnings, the day has grown into a worldwide movement supporting mother languages and cultural understanding, embraced as eagerly in Africa, Latin America and elsewhere as in its country of origin.

Canberra boasts more than 90 mother-tongue languages, and the event has grown steadily since its inception in 2014, with community groups, diplomats, UN representatives and politicians walking around the lake.

After gathering at the International Flag Display below the Questacon car park, where free themed T-shirts and caps will be distributed, walkers bearing banners and dressed in traditional costumes will be waved off by drummer Charles Koker before crossing King’s Avenue Bridge.

The walk winds up near the National Workers Memorial with a sausage sizzle, cultural performances and a curated concert of peace songs from around the world, played on the National Carillon by Thomas Laue.

Mother Language Walk, International Flag Display, 10.30am, February 21. Free event. All languages welcome. Information at imlm21.org.au