The National Library of Australia will hold a two-day conference commencing Saturday, 9 February 2019 to celebrate Indigenous languages and their role in cultural practice and healing.
From the National Library of Australia:
Wordlists recorded on Cook’s three Pacific voyages are invaluable sources for historians and First Nations peoples today. They show people coming together, trying to make themselves understood, and trying to understand each other. This conference highlights these wordlists, as well as the wide variety of work being undertaken in
language preservation in the cultural, academic and community sectors.
Over two days, experts from Australia and the Pacific will reveal how European travellers recorded the languages of the Pacific, and how the revitalisation of Indigenous
languages is supporting cultural practice and healing. Language Keepers will demonstrate the important work being undertaken by many organisations and communities in this sphere and celebrate the many examples of revitalisation of Indigenous languages of Australia and the Pacific.
Language Keepers: Preserving the Indigenous Languages of the Pacific is both the closing event surrounding the National Library of Australia’s exhibition Cook and the Pacific and the first event presented by the Library in association with the United Nations International Year of Indigenous Languages.
Conference Details:
Date: Saturday 9 February and Sunday 10 February 2019
Time: 9:30am to 4:30pm
Place: Theatre, National Library of Australia, Parkes Place, Canberra
Program: Download the Conference program here
