Language & Culture

Music education provides excellent opportunities to support Language and Culture programs in remote communities and schools. Taking these opportunities wherever possible, Music Outback has now become an important partner in the development of remote school cultural and first language curriculum, as well as in broader reaching language preservation programs.

Most Central Australian Indigenous language groups have reasonably large numbers of first language speakers who use it every day as a language in the home. Warlpiri and Arrernte for instance, have been written down for many years, and are in no danger of falling out of use. Other languages such as Anmatyerr and Alyawarr, while having plentiful populations of first language speakers, have only recently been written down. Kaytetye however, with less then 250 speakers using it on a daily basis, and kids now choosing to speak a “Creole” blend of Kaytetye and English, may fall out of use within one living generation.

In its language preservation work, Music Outback teams work with linguists and community members to record traditional stories in language and develop them into first language contemporary songs. This process has proven to be very exciting for community elders who are the custodians of these stories, as otherwise they often find it difficult to interest young people in this aspect of their culture. With songs about important traditional stories being written in the first language, and these songs then being enthusiastically learnt and sung by young kids, community elders are left delighted as a result.

The process has underlined the fact that it is the stories themselves that are most important to the traditional custodians, and that passing these stories down in a contemporary format such as modern song is a culturally relevant and important component of the long term life of local language and culture.

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Music Outback Foundation Fund
160 Left Bank Road, Mullumbimby, NSW 2482 AUSTRALIA

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