Maya kora koorliny (language comeback): Access and arts in Australia

Australia is home to hundreds of Indigenous languages, most in various states of endangerment and revitalisation. This paper concentrates on two pressing challenges, how to make historical language material more useful to Indigenous peoples reviving their languages, and how to increase opportunities for Indigenous peoples to build and maintain language capacity. It provides a snapshot of language revitalisation activity in Australia, focusing on the development of a dynamic online platform for Indigenous language manuscripts designed to increase Indigenous community access to primary source language material. It will also share a case-study on the long-term revitalisation Noongar language in the southwest of Western Australia. Building on foundations established via community meetings and collaboration with linguists in the 1980s, Noongar language revitalisation has escalated in recent years amid burgeoning Noongar performing arts projects across theatre, film, and music led by Noongar creatives.