WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.800 Well, friends all, we are ready to start on this very brisk morning. 2 00:00:05.520 --> 00:00:10.500 Welcome to you all to this Adelaide Festival of Ideas session, 3 00:00:11.360 --> 00:00:14.000 Should We Reclaim Dead Languages? 4 00:00:15.080 --> 00:00:18.900 I'm Elizabeth Ho, member of the AFOI board, 5 00:00:19.180 --> 00:00:21.160 and delighted to be chairing this session. 6 00:00:22.220 --> 00:00:24.780 And now to our speaker, Gilad Zuckerman. 7 00:00:24.780 --> 00:00:30.320 He is chair of linguistics and endangered languages at the University of Adelaide. 8 00:00:31.000 --> 00:00:34.680 He has a fervent interest in reviving dead languages, 9 00:00:36.080 --> 00:00:39.280 and on a reading of his biographical notes, 10 00:00:39.400 --> 00:00:43.980 I can say that he knows few boundaries, if any. 11 00:00:45.300 --> 00:00:49.240 He has worked across cultures and countries and continents, 12 00:00:50.040 --> 00:00:52.600 from the Middle East to Africa to Asia to Europe, 13 00:00:52.760 --> 00:00:54.760 and of course, home here in Adelaide. 14 00:00:54.780 --> 00:00:59.680 He has been a consultant and expert witness in lexicography 15 00:00:59.680 --> 00:01:04.760 and forensic linguistics in court cases all over the globe. 16 00:01:05.140 --> 00:01:07.360 Now, that is one to Google, I reckon. 17 00:01:07.440 --> 00:01:08.980 I think that's very interesting. 18 00:01:10.480 --> 00:01:13.400 And if you do Google, you might get a prize 19 00:01:13.400 --> 00:01:16.040 if you can find out where he has not been. 20 00:01:17.960 --> 00:01:22.720 He has been a visiting academic at several major universities in the world, 21 00:01:22.820 --> 00:01:24.560 from Oxford to Cambridge, 22 00:01:24.780 --> 00:01:27.660 to Austin, Texas, to Bellagio in Italy, 23 00:01:27.840 --> 00:01:31.660 to Singapore, to Shanghai, to Tokyo, to Jerusalem. 24 00:01:31.920 --> 00:01:37.280 I think that it's important to say that he is a prolific author. 25 00:01:38.280 --> 00:01:42.340 He is the author of several important works dealing with Hebrew and other languages. 26 00:01:42.680 --> 00:01:44.620 But especially for us today, 27 00:01:44.900 --> 00:01:48.800 I want to draw attention to his work with Aboriginal people 28 00:01:48.800 --> 00:01:54.080 and his respect for the complexities of cultural interchange. 29 00:01:55.780 --> 00:01:58.320 This is particularly underlined by his work, 30 00:01:58.480 --> 00:02:04.180 Engaging, a Guide to Interacting Respectfully and Reciprocally 31 00:02:04.180 --> 00:02:07.660 with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People 32 00:02:07.660 --> 00:02:12.640 and Their Arts Practices and Intellectual Property. 33 00:02:12.980 --> 00:02:15.560 That was published in 2015. 34 00:02:16.080 --> 00:02:23.180 And the first online dictionary of the Bangala Aboriginal language in 2016. 35 00:02:23.800 --> 00:02:24.760 He wrote, 36 00:02:24.760 --> 00:02:27.680 He is a chief investigator in a large research project 37 00:02:27.680 --> 00:02:32.020 assessing language revival and mental health, 38 00:02:32.280 --> 00:02:36.700 funded by Australia's National Health and Medical Research Council. 39 00:02:38.040 --> 00:02:40.100 He is the founder of Revitalistics, 40 00:02:40.460 --> 00:02:43.040 a new transdisciplinary field of inquiry 41 00:02:43.040 --> 00:02:49.500 surrounding language reclamation, revitalisation and reinvigoration. 42 00:02:49.900 --> 00:02:54.360 He has launched with the Bangala Aboriginal Communities of Air Peninsula, 43 00:02:54.760 --> 00:02:57.920 South Australia, the reclamation of their language. 44 00:02:58.540 --> 00:03:04.820 Professor Zuckerman is an elected member of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies 45 00:03:05.380 --> 00:03:08.680 and the Foundation for Endangered Languages. 46 00:03:09.020 --> 00:03:13.740 I suspect we might have an answer to the question before us today. 47 00:03:14.720 --> 00:03:17.440 But I just want to say, 48 00:03:17.520 --> 00:03:19.360 G'day Gillard. 49 00:03:20.120 --> 00:03:21.540 Good on you mate. 50 00:03:21.700 --> 00:03:23.580 And I tips me lid to you. 51 00:03:25.180 --> 00:03:26.100 Either to you. 52 00:03:31.140 --> 00:03:36.560 Thank you so much Elizabeth for such a welcome, such a warm welcome. 53 00:03:37.740 --> 00:03:42.440 It's a pleasure to be here for the first time at the Adelaide Festival of Ideas. 54 00:03:42.500 --> 00:03:49.420 And I would like to also acknowledge Greg who is here with the glasses. 55 00:03:49.460 --> 00:03:51.760 Some people do not know you Greg, so you need to. 56 00:03:51.860 --> 00:03:54.740 And I hope you enjoyed it. 57 00:03:54.740 --> 00:04:02.140 I know it's the beginning of a long friendship when it comes to Adelaide Festival of Ideas. 58 00:04:02.260 --> 00:04:06.700 I call this lecture, Should We Reclaim Dead Languages? 59 00:04:06.860 --> 00:04:09.840 This is only one question that I would like to answer. 60 00:04:10.220 --> 00:04:15.560 I would like to start with Nalu Tampintigana Miwunayata Matanyawama Tandanyaku. 61 00:04:15.840 --> 00:04:20.020 Tandanyaku is the name for Adelaide. 62 00:04:20.160 --> 00:04:22.220 It's a portmanteau blend. 63 00:04:22.220 --> 00:04:27.740 A little bit like motel from motor hotel or spork from spoon and fork. 64 00:04:28.200 --> 00:04:28.940 Tandaganya. 65 00:04:29.120 --> 00:04:32.480 So it puts Tanda together with Ganya. 66 00:04:32.660 --> 00:04:37.020 So Tanda is a male red kangaroo and Ganya is a rock. 67 00:04:37.180 --> 00:04:40.380 So Tandaganya is the rock of the red kangaroo. 68 00:04:41.040 --> 00:04:44.400 Tandaganya is Adelaide in Ghana. 69 00:04:45.120 --> 00:04:50.480 Which is itself the result of a language reclamation. 70 00:04:50.480 --> 00:04:52.200 So without a language reclamation, 71 00:04:52.220 --> 00:04:56.200 I would have never been able to say that acknowledgement. 72 00:04:56.580 --> 00:04:58.440 Rather than welcome to country. 73 00:04:58.540 --> 00:05:00.260 Because I'm not an aboriginal person. 74 00:05:00.420 --> 00:05:01.880 So I cannot do welcome to country. 75 00:05:02.100 --> 00:05:04.540 This talk is about resilience. 76 00:05:04.740 --> 00:05:08.180 I remember bumping into Muhammad Ali in Detroit. 77 00:05:09.860 --> 00:05:12.320 He tried to make me a Muslim. 78 00:05:12.680 --> 00:05:16.660 And for me, if you know anything about boxing, 79 00:05:16.980 --> 00:05:18.420 he was there for the long run. 80 00:05:18.540 --> 00:05:19.440 He was an athlete. 81 00:05:19.600 --> 00:05:22.040 It was not like Rambo who just knocks you out. 82 00:05:22.040 --> 00:05:25.200 And when it comes to languages, it's for the long run. 83 00:05:25.380 --> 00:05:27.160 So this has to do with resilience. 84 00:05:27.540 --> 00:05:30.820 I'm going to, I have been told that I only have 35 minutes 85 00:05:30.820 --> 00:05:32.120 because we are going to have a discussion. 86 00:05:32.380 --> 00:05:36.120 So I'm going to go through some slides quickly. 87 00:05:36.340 --> 00:05:38.540 So don't worry about it. 88 00:05:38.640 --> 00:05:42.500 This is a photo from 2012. 89 00:05:42.940 --> 00:05:48.100 It was the first language reclamation workshop within the Bangla land. 90 00:05:48.580 --> 00:05:50.220 It was Gallinalla, Port Lincoln. 91 00:05:50.420 --> 00:05:52.020 The name for Port Lincoln is Gallinalla. 92 00:05:52.020 --> 00:05:58.740 And this is from two days, three days ago. 93 00:05:59.080 --> 00:06:01.480 It's the same place, just the other side. 94 00:06:01.780 --> 00:06:06.020 And it's, I don't know what is the number of this workshop. 95 00:06:06.160 --> 00:06:07.820 So you can see there are more people. 96 00:06:08.160 --> 00:06:11.320 And this is just Bangla. 97 00:06:11.500 --> 00:06:17.940 The main question is why on earth should we invest time and money in reviving dead languages? 98 00:06:18.260 --> 00:06:21.120 This question is important because you, 99 00:06:21.120 --> 00:06:23.460 you are taxpayers. 100 00:06:24.220 --> 00:06:30.420 And the government might use your tax to reclaim languages in the future. 101 00:06:30.500 --> 00:06:36.680 And you need to be aware of whether or not it's good or bad to reclaim dead languages. 102 00:06:36.920 --> 00:06:39.440 I'm going to give you, in the little time that I have, 103 00:06:39.540 --> 00:06:47.780 ethical, aesthetic, and also utilitarian reasons for language reclamation of dead languages. 104 00:06:47.920 --> 00:06:50.680 Meaning by dead, nobody speaks these languages. 105 00:06:51.120 --> 00:06:54.000 So I would like to say at the beginning that for me personally, 106 00:06:54.260 --> 00:06:55.820 and this is a personal thing, 107 00:06:56.000 --> 00:06:58.240 the first reason is sufficient. 108 00:06:58.400 --> 00:07:00.000 The ethical reason. 109 00:07:00.100 --> 00:07:01.500 So I do what I do, 110 00:07:02.160 --> 00:07:03.800 merely for ethical reasons. 111 00:07:04.020 --> 00:07:10.260 In fact, even if I could not find aesthetic and utilitarian benefits for language reclamation, 112 00:07:10.640 --> 00:07:14.140 I would have still believed in language reclamation. 113 00:07:14.520 --> 00:07:20.880 But it is important to explain that if you are a civil servant, for example, 114 00:07:21.120 --> 00:07:24.100 you do not, you need also utilitarian benefits. 115 00:07:24.300 --> 00:07:26.500 Meaning, you know, I'm giving you one million dollars, 116 00:07:26.720 --> 00:07:29.000 how many millions of dollars are you going to save? 117 00:07:29.880 --> 00:07:31.640 This is a utilitarian benefit. 118 00:07:32.820 --> 00:07:36.780 And the aesthetic, of course, it's just because we are homo sapiens sapiens, 119 00:07:36.820 --> 00:07:40.700 as opposed to non-homo sapiens sapiens animals. 120 00:07:41.120 --> 00:07:47.140 The many related questions that are not, or maybe in the question time we are going to discuss, 121 00:07:47.260 --> 00:07:50.220 is there a link between language and mental health? 122 00:07:50.220 --> 00:07:51.820 I'm going to touch upon it actually. 123 00:07:52.140 --> 00:07:57.680 Should we financially compensate indigenous people for the loss of their native tongue? 124 00:07:58.840 --> 00:08:01.800 Meaning, we pay people for the loss of land. 125 00:08:02.660 --> 00:08:07.160 I personally believe language is much more important than land. 126 00:08:07.420 --> 00:08:10.880 So why should we not compensate people for the loss of language? 127 00:08:13.040 --> 00:08:16.800 Should indigenous languages be defined as official languages of Australia? 128 00:08:16.840 --> 00:08:19.620 As you know, currently there are no official languages in Australia. 129 00:08:20.260 --> 00:08:21.440 Not even English. 130 00:08:21.500 --> 00:08:28.800 Should we define 330 aboriginal languages as the official languages of the region? 131 00:08:29.180 --> 00:08:30.000 Why not? 132 00:08:31.440 --> 00:08:33.540 Should we erect bilingual signs? 133 00:08:33.840 --> 00:08:37.940 Why is it that I've just been to Port Lincoln and I say, welcome to Port Lincoln. 134 00:08:38.020 --> 00:08:40.860 There was no, there was nothing about Galinyala there. 135 00:08:40.940 --> 00:08:43.940 Nobody knows that Port Lincoln was called Galinyala. 136 00:08:44.120 --> 00:08:49.340 Unless you are, I mean now it's true, more and more people know. 137 00:08:50.220 --> 00:08:51.760 Does language dictate the way we think? 138 00:08:52.220 --> 00:08:54.960 Is it possible at all to reclaim a language? 139 00:08:55.120 --> 00:08:56.840 Maybe it's impossible, so why bother? 140 00:08:57.960 --> 00:09:03.840 But before that I would like to show you a few slides from my own life. 141 00:09:04.120 --> 00:09:15.240 As Elizabeth kindly said, I travel a lot and unfortunately there are so many people in the world who seek language revival help. 142 00:09:15.640 --> 00:09:17.120 Well, Margaret Mead said, 143 00:09:17.120 --> 00:09:21.780 Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. 144 00:09:21.980 --> 00:09:24.040 Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. 145 00:09:24.240 --> 00:09:34.380 I think it's of relevance to Greg's historical trust and also to the Adelaide Festival of Ideas. 146 00:09:34.640 --> 00:09:37.540 This is Eliezer Ben Yehuda on the left. 147 00:09:37.580 --> 00:09:40.060 He was the revivalist of Hebrew. 148 00:09:40.500 --> 00:09:45.760 My own native tongue is what I call Israeli, which is revived Hebrew. 149 00:09:45.760 --> 00:10:00.220 So if I speak coherently, you can argue that it is possible to have a mother tongue that did not exist 120 years ago and still to be able to think properly. 150 00:10:00.480 --> 00:10:04.200 So my mother tongue did not exist 120 years ago. 151 00:10:04.480 --> 00:10:08.200 And on the right you can see Eliezer Ben Yehuda, his grandson. 152 00:10:08.480 --> 00:10:15.740 We met together by a journalist arranged a meeting with the hope that we would find him. 153 00:10:15.740 --> 00:10:17.880 We had a fight, but at the end we became friends. 154 00:10:18.040 --> 00:10:19.760 So you can see it in the photo. 155 00:10:20.740 --> 00:10:26.480 Klamer Wilhelm Schumann was an amazing missionary that you might have heard of. 156 00:10:26.660 --> 00:10:33.200 He wrote with Peissemann in 1840 the dictionary of the Adelaide language, which we call Ghana today. 157 00:10:33.500 --> 00:10:39.540 Ghana is an exonym, meaning it is not a name within the Ghana language. 158 00:10:39.660 --> 00:10:41.880 It's an external name. 159 00:10:41.880 --> 00:10:45.640 So we differentiate between an exonym and an endonym. 160 00:10:45.800 --> 00:10:48.760 So exonym is a name given to you by somebody else. 161 00:10:48.820 --> 00:10:50.500 In this case, Naringeri people. 162 00:10:50.860 --> 00:10:53.840 So Ghana, in fact, in Ghana would have been Myona. 163 00:10:54.020 --> 00:10:56.240 Myona means people within Ghana. 164 00:10:56.560 --> 00:11:02.260 So there was an attempt to change Ghana to Myona because it's a name by somebody else. 165 00:11:02.720 --> 00:11:08.980 It's a little bit like Deutsch and Tedesco in Italian, etc. 166 00:11:09.080 --> 00:11:10.860 So it depends who gives the name. 167 00:11:11.880 --> 00:11:16.160 Wilhelm Schumann in 1844 wrote a dictionary of the Bangla language. 168 00:11:16.600 --> 00:11:24.280 And this is wonderful because he was a German Lutheran missionary who wanted to Christianize the heathens in quotation marks. 169 00:11:24.720 --> 00:11:38.100 But 170 years later, we use this very dictionary in order to reconnect with the spirituality that as I see it, as a non-religious Jew, 170 00:11:38.400 --> 00:11:41.040 the missionaries wanted to... 171 00:11:41.040 --> 00:11:43.100 the aboriginal people to forget about. 172 00:11:43.380 --> 00:11:45.900 In other words, you have here a twist. 173 00:11:46.320 --> 00:11:49.700 The missionary wanted to Christianize, to show the light. 174 00:11:50.060 --> 00:11:55.220 We use his very dictionary in order to do the opposite. 175 00:11:55.420 --> 00:11:58.940 I mean to reconnect with the aboriginal light, so to speak. 176 00:11:59.180 --> 00:12:02.700 So this is a beautiful righting the wrong of the past. 177 00:12:03.000 --> 00:12:05.680 And it's a poetic justice if you want. 178 00:12:05.880 --> 00:12:09.780 Pursuing an academic career in the arts and the humanities in 2018 179 00:12:09.780 --> 00:12:13.280 reminds me of the three marks of existence in Buddhism. 180 00:12:13.840 --> 00:12:16.900 Impermanence, nothing is constant, nothing is tenured. 181 00:12:16.980 --> 00:12:19.540 Even a tenure does not mean much today. 182 00:12:20.400 --> 00:12:22.780 This is called the casualization of academia. 183 00:12:23.580 --> 00:12:25.620 Suffering, everything is painful and stressful. 184 00:12:25.800 --> 00:12:27.420 And of course there is no self. 185 00:12:27.580 --> 00:12:29.840 These are the three marks of existence in Buddhism. 186 00:12:31.660 --> 00:12:37.860 But, and this is important, as the second president of America said, 187 00:12:37.860 --> 00:12:43.640 I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. 188 00:12:44.040 --> 00:12:48.080 My sons ought to study mathematics, philosophy, geography, natural history, 189 00:12:48.240 --> 00:12:50.420 naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture 190 00:12:50.420 --> 00:12:54.820 in order to give their children a right to study statuary, tapestry, 191 00:12:55.120 --> 00:12:59.800 sorry, painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, porcelain, 192 00:12:59.920 --> 00:13:02.880 language revival, heritage languages. 193 00:13:03.120 --> 00:13:06.900 This is the third phase which is very important. 194 00:13:06.900 --> 00:13:10.980 So this is something that I follow. 195 00:13:11.440 --> 00:13:15.920 Abraham Maslow, the Jewish-American scholar, 196 00:13:17.320 --> 00:13:19.620 talked about the basic human needs. 197 00:13:20.160 --> 00:13:26.620 And if I ask you where most people in the world are now, 198 00:13:27.380 --> 00:13:31.920 you might argue that it's somewhere between physiological and safety. 199 00:13:32.020 --> 00:13:35.200 Obviously if you're a Syrian, from Syria, 200 00:13:35.360 --> 00:13:36.880 so it's not even a big deal. 201 00:13:36.900 --> 00:13:39.460 I mean, it's physiological safety. 202 00:13:40.180 --> 00:13:45.460 I mean, but let's say in China it would be probably the third, belonging, love. 203 00:13:46.900 --> 00:13:49.300 I believe, and this is important, 204 00:13:49.480 --> 00:13:54.140 that the Industrial Revolution turned people from seeking food to seeking things. 205 00:13:54.340 --> 00:13:58.760 But the technological revolution that we are currently experiencing 206 00:13:58.760 --> 00:14:02.560 will turn people from seeking things to seeking ideas. 207 00:14:03.100 --> 00:14:06.880 How relevant it is for the Adelaide Festival of Ideas. 208 00:14:06.900 --> 00:14:13.300 So more and more people will not care about only big cars and beautiful houses, etc. 209 00:14:13.480 --> 00:14:15.820 But also they will seek, I'm talking about the hoi polloi. 210 00:14:16.000 --> 00:14:17.100 I'm not talking about the elite. 211 00:14:17.280 --> 00:14:18.820 I mean, the elite always seek ideas. 212 00:14:19.040 --> 00:14:20.000 I'm talking about the masses. 213 00:14:20.380 --> 00:14:27.240 And I think this should be part of the rationale for the Adelaide Festival of Ideas for the future. 214 00:14:27.540 --> 00:14:33.000 Now, what it means from the perspective of Maslow is that I believe that in the future 215 00:14:33.000 --> 00:14:35.900 people will go up the hierarchy. 216 00:14:35.900 --> 00:14:37.740 The hierarchy of needs. 217 00:14:38.340 --> 00:14:40.180 You might say it's wishful thinking. 218 00:14:40.480 --> 00:14:43.800 But I think that it has to do with a technological revolution. 219 00:14:43.920 --> 00:14:51.480 This revolution that has to do with the fact that you can read today something which is written right now in Canada, etc. 220 00:14:51.740 --> 00:14:54.020 I remember, and you know, I'm not that old, 221 00:14:54.100 --> 00:14:57.200 that when I heard first time about the Internet I was shocked. 222 00:14:57.260 --> 00:15:02.360 I didn't understand how it is possible that somebody can read something that I write at the same time. 223 00:15:02.540 --> 00:15:04.240 And I'm sure that most of you remember that. 224 00:15:04.240 --> 00:15:06.920 Now, I've mentioned the technological revolution. 225 00:15:07.040 --> 00:15:12.800 I just want to make order so in our understanding of language. 226 00:15:13.020 --> 00:15:15.960 There were four linguistic revolutions as I see it. 227 00:15:15.980 --> 00:15:18.120 The first linguistic revolution was speaking. 228 00:15:18.500 --> 00:15:21.280 And this was more than 70,000 years ago. 229 00:15:21.460 --> 00:15:26.240 This is why we, homo sapiens sapiens, are different from animals. 230 00:15:26.600 --> 00:15:33.220 Animals can communicate basically, but they cannot produce sentences that they have never produced before. 231 00:15:33.220 --> 00:15:37.360 And this is why homo sapiens sapiens is different. 232 00:15:37.560 --> 00:15:43.560 And I'm kind of corresponding with Marcello Costa's lecture yesterday about homo sapiens. 233 00:15:43.820 --> 00:15:46.980 So speaking was more than 70,000 years ago. 234 00:15:47.020 --> 00:15:55.840 In my humble opinion, it is what allowed Aboriginal people to arrive in Australia, which was so far from Africa. 235 00:15:56.240 --> 00:15:57.700 The second one, writing. 236 00:15:57.920 --> 00:16:01.080 And this is approximately 5,200 years ago. 237 00:16:01.320 --> 00:16:03.200 And writing happened in the early 20th century. 238 00:16:03.200 --> 00:16:07.000 And because of economic reasons, not because of romantic reasons. 239 00:16:07.200 --> 00:16:13.900 So practically somebody stole some wheat on the way from Iraq to Israel. 240 00:16:14.160 --> 00:16:20.760 And then when the Iraqis were supposed to receive the exchange, they saw it was half. 241 00:16:21.060 --> 00:16:22.420 And they said, what's happening here? 242 00:16:22.520 --> 00:16:26.220 So next time they actually wrote four units of wheat. 243 00:16:26.380 --> 00:16:27.760 And this is how writing emerged. 244 00:16:28.180 --> 00:16:33.180 Now, as you might know, most of the languages in the world do not have a language. 245 00:16:33.180 --> 00:16:35.100 They have no writing systems traditionally. 246 00:16:35.520 --> 00:16:39.340 For example, 330 Aboriginal languages, no writing system. 247 00:16:39.940 --> 00:16:40.900 Type printing. 248 00:16:41.260 --> 00:16:45.300 So this is 1450 Johannes Gutenberg. 249 00:16:45.560 --> 00:16:50.040 But you can also talk about Chinese parallel developments. 250 00:16:50.180 --> 00:16:59.340 This is why Shakespeare wrote his surname in five different ways, none of which was S-H-A-K-E-S-P-E-A-R-E. 251 00:16:59.520 --> 00:17:01.160 He was not dyslexic. 252 00:17:01.160 --> 00:17:09.440 It's just that nobody could give a damn about spelling before type printing and the mass production of books. 253 00:17:10.020 --> 00:17:13.420 So in the past, nowadays we care a lot about spelling. 254 00:17:13.480 --> 00:17:15.580 There is a spelling bee in America, etc. 255 00:17:15.800 --> 00:17:17.880 But this is something that nobody cared about. 256 00:17:18.060 --> 00:17:30.520 In fact, in 1976, there was the ABS, the Australian Bureau of Statistics, had a survey. 257 00:17:30.520 --> 00:17:39.080 And Presbyterian Australians spelled Presbyterian in 383 ways. 258 00:17:39.800 --> 00:17:41.960 So they asked you, what are you? 259 00:17:42.000 --> 00:17:43.400 And you had to say Presbyterian. 260 00:17:43.420 --> 00:17:46.600 I repeat, 383 ways. 261 00:17:47.680 --> 00:17:48.160 Presbyterian. 262 00:17:48.200 --> 00:17:49.880 And these were Presbyterian people. 263 00:17:50.280 --> 00:17:52.480 So they were not Catholics or some other. 264 00:17:52.880 --> 00:17:56.400 Now, I'm not going to talk about prehistory because I do not have time. 265 00:17:56.660 --> 00:17:59.200 But it is maybe for the next lecture. 266 00:17:59.200 --> 00:18:01.300 So let's talk about language revival. 267 00:18:01.840 --> 00:18:11.200 Why on earth, if you understand now that in the future we are going to have more time for language revival 268 00:18:11.200 --> 00:18:17.280 because people will be into ideas, into heritage more than today. 269 00:18:17.520 --> 00:18:19.260 And again, I'm talking about the hoi polloi. 270 00:18:19.480 --> 00:18:23.900 Then why should we revive dead languages? 271 00:18:24.300 --> 00:18:26.320 Let me begin with ethical reasons. 272 00:18:26.840 --> 00:18:29.120 Ethical reasons have to do with history. 273 00:18:29.200 --> 00:18:31.320 Historical, humanistic, and social justice. 274 00:18:31.800 --> 00:18:38.340 As Nelson Mandela said, if you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. 275 00:18:38.540 --> 00:18:41.980 If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart. 276 00:18:42.500 --> 00:18:44.660 I believe in native tongue title. 277 00:18:44.980 --> 00:18:49.180 Native tongue title is modeled upon the famous native title, 278 00:18:49.340 --> 00:18:57.360 which I personally think is a beautiful thing that has caused huge problems among aboriginal communities. 279 00:18:58.000 --> 00:19:05.280 It's a western idea to give kind of a tag to a tangible thing. 280 00:19:05.400 --> 00:19:06.520 Because you can, it's property. 281 00:19:06.720 --> 00:19:10.300 You can touch it, you know, as opposed to language that it's intangible. 282 00:19:10.500 --> 00:19:18.460 We're still in a world in which the intangible is less acknowledged and less, say, quantified. 283 00:19:18.620 --> 00:19:20.860 But it will not be like that forever. 284 00:19:21.200 --> 00:19:25.640 Native title means that Bangla people fight with Kukera people 285 00:19:25.640 --> 00:19:29.680 and with Adnyamatna people over a certain area. 286 00:19:29.860 --> 00:19:36.740 Native tongue title means that Adnyamatna people take part in the reclamation of the Bangla language 287 00:19:36.740 --> 00:19:41.220 because Adnyamatna is still spoken and they can help the Bangla people. 288 00:19:41.440 --> 00:19:43.360 So it's actually more harmonious. 289 00:19:43.640 --> 00:19:48.300 Native tongue title means compensation for the loss of language. 290 00:19:48.900 --> 00:19:53.680 As I said earlier, the loss of language is more severe than the loss of land. 291 00:19:53.680 --> 00:19:58.620 Language death means loss of cultural autonomy, loss of intellectual sovereignty, 292 00:19:59.020 --> 00:20:04.400 loss of spirituality, loss of, excuse the metaphor, soul. 293 00:20:05.240 --> 00:20:07.820 You lose your soul when you lose your language. 294 00:20:08.140 --> 00:20:13.540 I was attending a beautiful show here, La Sonambula. 295 00:20:13.820 --> 00:20:14.800 It's an opera. 296 00:20:14.980 --> 00:20:19.260 And I was introduced to somebody called Peter Holben. 297 00:20:19.660 --> 00:20:21.000 Do you know Peter Holben? 298 00:20:21.680 --> 00:20:22.740 Yeah, Peter Holben. 299 00:20:22.820 --> 00:20:23.660 And I said, Holben. 300 00:20:23.680 --> 00:20:25.460 What a beautiful name. 301 00:20:26.240 --> 00:20:29.420 Just like Russell Holben, the American children's writer. 302 00:20:29.680 --> 00:20:31.660 And then I quoted this. 303 00:20:32.220 --> 00:20:36.840 Language is an archaeological vehicle full of the remnants of dead and living pasts, 304 00:20:36.840 --> 00:20:39.100 lost and buried civilizations and technologies. 305 00:20:39.520 --> 00:20:43.140 The language we speak is a whole palimpsest of human effort and history. 306 00:20:44.120 --> 00:20:49.180 And then Peter, it was the first time I met him and unfortunately the last time, 307 00:20:49.320 --> 00:20:52.420 he said, you're the first person to get my name right 308 00:20:52.420 --> 00:20:56.860 because everybody calls me Peter Holben, like Paul Hogan. 309 00:20:57.260 --> 00:21:00.580 And then he says, yesterday I received a phone call from Optus. 310 00:21:00.640 --> 00:21:04.440 Would you like to upgrade your plan, Mr. Holben? 311 00:21:04.720 --> 00:21:07.180 So I told her, it's not Holben, it's with a B. 312 00:21:07.260 --> 00:21:09.360 So she said, would you like to upgrade your plan, Mr. Bogan? 313 00:21:10.740 --> 00:21:16.740 So she was an Indian telemarketer and nothing, I mean, she knew nothing about bogans. 314 00:21:18.240 --> 00:21:22.400 Now, Australia was full of bogans to start with. 315 00:21:22.400 --> 00:21:27.140 For example, and forgive me if you're related to Anthony Forster, 316 00:21:27.600 --> 00:21:30.200 look, this is what he said in 1843. 317 00:21:30.640 --> 00:21:34.180 The native would be sooner civilized if their language was extinct. 318 00:21:34.600 --> 00:21:41.680 This is a Bogan, forgive the flexibility of the use of the term, a Bogan point of view. 319 00:21:41.920 --> 00:21:45.860 You know, we kill their language, then they will become civilized 320 00:21:46.400 --> 00:21:48.400 because the language makes them primitive. 321 00:21:48.480 --> 00:21:50.180 This is in quotation marks. 322 00:21:50.700 --> 00:21:52.380 A Chinese Chinese. 323 00:21:52.400 --> 00:21:53.940 You shouldn't ask me what this means. 324 00:21:54.220 --> 00:21:57.260 Because, you know, nobody teaches what this means. 325 00:21:57.440 --> 00:21:59.660 You know, like, so this means quotation marks. 326 00:21:59.780 --> 00:22:04.300 The problem is when it is an audio, you have to say in quotation marks. 327 00:22:05.200 --> 00:22:08.520 You probably know this guy, George Gray. 328 00:22:08.800 --> 00:22:12.380 And he says, and he was relatively pro-aboriginal, 329 00:22:12.600 --> 00:22:19.020 the real languages disappear successively and the tongue of England alone is heard around. 330 00:22:19.340 --> 00:22:21.400 Why does George Gray, the governor, 331 00:22:21.400 --> 00:22:26.400 regard the aboriginal people, the aboriginal languages as rude languages? 332 00:22:28.580 --> 00:22:32.480 Grammatically, aboriginal languages are actually very complex. 333 00:22:32.780 --> 00:22:34.860 They have the erogative case, for example. 334 00:22:34.860 --> 00:22:40.160 They have a plethora of pronouns much more complex than English. 335 00:22:41.100 --> 00:22:43.100 I mean, English is getting more complex. 336 00:22:43.160 --> 00:22:48.980 For example, when I go to Galinyala or Wayala or Port Augusta with some friends, 337 00:22:49.060 --> 00:22:50.740 they say, what do you guys think? 338 00:22:50.740 --> 00:22:52.660 So, youse means you, plural. 339 00:22:52.900 --> 00:22:54.220 This is complexification. 340 00:22:54.860 --> 00:22:58.840 Because you, for both singular and plural, is very simple. 341 00:22:59.340 --> 00:23:03.500 It used to be thou for you, singular, and you for plural. 342 00:23:03.740 --> 00:23:10.220 But then because of simplification, English became kind of not that rich. 343 00:23:10.540 --> 00:23:16.260 But now there is a richer English in which you have you for singular and youse for plural. 344 00:23:16.360 --> 00:23:17.240 This is richer. 345 00:23:17.660 --> 00:23:19.900 This makes English more complex. 346 00:23:21.560 --> 00:23:23.560 Australia ought to learn from New Zealand. 347 00:23:23.820 --> 00:23:27.360 New Zealand is a wonderful place when it comes to language. 348 00:23:27.460 --> 00:23:31.280 As you know, there are two official languages in New Zealand. 349 00:23:31.340 --> 00:23:32.040 Do you know what they are? 350 00:23:32.920 --> 00:23:36.800 Maori, te reo Maori, with a long a, te reo Maori. 351 00:23:36.840 --> 00:23:40.440 And what is the second official language of New Zealand? 352 00:23:40.480 --> 00:23:42.180 This is a very hard question. 353 00:23:42.980 --> 00:23:43.860 Not English. 354 00:23:45.340 --> 00:23:45.820 No. 355 00:23:46.460 --> 00:23:49.980 So, the second official language of New Zealand, I will give you a hint. 356 00:23:49.980 --> 00:23:50.840 What is this? 357 00:23:51.980 --> 00:23:52.780 Very good. 358 00:23:52.920 --> 00:23:53.920 This means good. 359 00:23:54.500 --> 00:23:56.460 This one means sex. 360 00:23:58.500 --> 00:24:04.260 You can find it in Peter Goldsworthy's book about the chimpanzee. 361 00:24:04.740 --> 00:24:06.440 It's good, but it kills you. 362 00:24:06.640 --> 00:24:11.140 This is how, if you see two deaf people in Adelaide talking to each other, and one does like that, 363 00:24:11.440 --> 00:24:15.140 it doesn't mean they're from Daesh or from ISIS. 364 00:24:15.360 --> 00:24:18.400 It means that they're talking about sex. 365 00:24:19.980 --> 00:24:31.240 So, the point here is that New Zealand is so advanced to understand that English ought not to be the official language, 366 00:24:31.320 --> 00:24:32.360 and I'm talking about the Yure. 367 00:24:32.420 --> 00:24:34.840 Of course, de facto, English is official. 368 00:24:35.600 --> 00:24:37.220 But the Yure, it's not. 369 00:24:37.480 --> 00:24:38.780 And this is beautiful. 370 00:24:38.980 --> 00:24:41.460 And I think that Australia should have the same thing. 371 00:24:41.540 --> 00:24:42.420 English is not. 372 00:24:42.660 --> 00:24:46.460 So, Australia should have 331 official languages. 373 00:24:46.740 --> 00:24:48.820 It's the sign language, Auslan. 374 00:24:48.820 --> 00:24:53.160 And also 330 aboriginal languages. 375 00:24:53.360 --> 00:24:58.620 Of course, Bangla will be the official language of Ur Peninsula, according to the native title, 376 00:24:58.680 --> 00:25:00.280 and then Ghana will be of Adelaide, etc. 377 00:25:00.480 --> 00:25:02.460 Ghana is not going to be the official language of Sydney. 378 00:25:03.340 --> 00:25:05.440 So, this is going to be regional. 379 00:25:06.660 --> 00:25:09.240 Now, I've talked about ethical reasons. 380 00:25:09.460 --> 00:25:12.640 I would like to talk now about aesthetic reasons, 381 00:25:12.780 --> 00:25:17.820 because I want to leave some questions for some questions. 382 00:25:20.700 --> 00:25:25.080 Aesthetic motivations are based on Ken Hale's statement. 383 00:25:25.580 --> 00:25:30.360 When you lose a language, you lose a culture, intellectual wealth, a work of art. 384 00:25:30.460 --> 00:25:33.860 It's like dropping a bomb on a museum, the Louvre. 385 00:25:34.520 --> 00:25:38.060 It has to do with diversity, with beauty. 386 00:25:38.320 --> 00:25:41.200 If I go to the Adelaide Central Market and I'm told, 387 00:25:41.280 --> 00:25:47.900 excuse me, sir, unfortunately we are out of shabishu, we are out of roquefort, we only have cheddar cheese, 388 00:25:47.900 --> 00:25:52.420 I would be extremely upset, because I love my cheeses, I believe in cheeses. 389 00:25:52.660 --> 00:26:01.580 You see, the point is that some lactose malabsorbent people might not have this idea about believing in cheeses. 390 00:26:01.780 --> 00:26:07.460 So, it has to do with aesthetic pleasure, it has to do with taste. 391 00:26:07.940 --> 00:26:10.340 Look how beautiful Australia used to be. 392 00:26:10.440 --> 00:26:16.060 Australia used to be a beautiful, multicultural, colorful, lucky country. 393 00:26:16.280 --> 00:26:17.880 And look how uncivilized it is. 394 00:26:17.900 --> 00:26:19.120 Look how ugly Australia is today. 395 00:26:19.400 --> 00:26:28.700 And the ugliness of Australia also has to do with the fact that you have a line between Western Australia and South Australia and Northern Territory, 396 00:26:28.740 --> 00:26:36.880 which is based, as you might know, on the line dividing Latin America between Spain and Portugal. 397 00:26:37.120 --> 00:26:44.120 In other words, the line dividing Western Australia and the rest has nothing to do with Aboriginal culture. 398 00:26:44.220 --> 00:26:47.880 It has to do with some political agreement between Spain and Portugal. 399 00:26:47.880 --> 00:26:50.660 It is shocking. 400 00:26:51.680 --> 00:26:54.180 But you can do it with the globe, you can continue. 401 00:26:54.500 --> 00:26:59.660