Abstract

Over the past six years I have been working with Australian Aboriginal communities on recovery of their linguistic and cultural heritage with the goal or revitalising their indigenous languages:

• in South Australia with the Dieri Aboriginal Corporation concerning the Diyari language – see Austin 2014, www.dieriyawarra.wordpress.com • in Western Australia with the Ingaarda Aboriginal Corporation on the Yinggarda language, and the Baiyungu Aboriginal Corporation and the WA Parks and Wildlife Service on the Bayungu language (www.yinggarda.org)

This talk discusses some of the opportunities this work has created as well as the various linguistic and non-linguistic challenges that have arisen, and how we have attempted to address them, including the use of community-based training workshops, social media and online blogs. It also addresses the challenge of using a limited data corpus for linguistic analysis – a reality inevitable in the cases of some endangered languages.