The UNESCO-declared International Year of Indigenous Languages continued in the second half of 2019, and we continued our program of activities designed to raise awareness, inform and educate Australians about the history, use and resurgence of our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages, and to promote, support and celebrate their use and growth. These included:
- the Dictionaries Project - publication of an additional four Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander language dictionaries during the 12 month reporting period.
- Ngalipa Nyangu Jaru: Pirrjirdi Ka Ngalpa Mardani Our Language, Keeping Us Strong exhibition in our foyer gallery.
- Paper and Talk Workshops bringing together community researchers from five language groups to explore the archives, research historical records and repatriate important material back to their communities.
- Further development of the Austlang database.
- Continuing digitisation of audio material in the collection making progress towards the complete digitisation of the vulnerable audio tape collections, which contain a wealth of invaluable language materials spoken and detailed by community members. Related print and manuscript materials from the languages collection have also been digitised and returned to communities.