Yibiyung – Program - Belvoir St Theatre

Roma Winmar speaks aboutLANGUAGEPrior to settlement there were manylanguage groups within Australia.The Tindale maps 1 show them witha multiplicity of lines, so manythat they look like road markings.Not only that, there were alsomany different dialects within thelanguages. Yet when you talk aboutit to people now, many are ignorantof the fact that people actually hadlanguages of their own…All of a sudden they… someone…the powers that be came over andsaid “Now you will learn God’slanguage… now you will learn tospeak our language”. (In reality, I’mnot saying everybody either. Youcan’t say ‘They did this’ because it’snot They at all, it was individualsthat changed; made policies andeverything else.)When you take away the language ofanybody you take away their culture.Gradually, of course, if you look atthe Tindale maps, it’s like an eraserhas slowly gone over them; themarks sort of fading, or blendinginto one, you know. Then comes theopportunity for regeneration…Language is something that’s inyour – well I reckon it’s in yourgenes. You’re born to it, youhear it and it doesn’t matter howlong you’ve been away from it, ifsomebody starts talking, you know,you can feel a sort of growth insideyou; the familiarity of something…I’d heard it but never spoke it. Iwas the youngest and discouragedfrom speaking it, well, because ofthe powers that be. You’re learningyour standard Australian English andyou’re looking to the future and that’swhere your future’s going to be, bybeing an Australian… but, you weren’tquite an Australian because youweren’t counted in the census andthat wasn’t until 1967, right?But all the time, all through theyears, mum always, when shewanted to speak Language, she did…Then, when I was teaching in Perth, aflyer came around saying ‘If anyone’sinterested in Noongar languagesor Indigenous languages we’rehaving workshops.’ This came aboutbecause prior to that about a hundredrepresentatives from over the statehad come in and spoken with theEducation Department and said: “Wewant our languages taught in theschools – instead of French… Wewant an opportunity”…The first time I went to the languagegroup and the oldies were theresaying “This is the word, this is howyou say it,” I was overwhelmed… Iwas still overwhelmed by the time Igot to my second presentation andthe only thing I could say was: “Well,I’m having a go at the language, butI’m overwhelmed because it wasmy mother’s language.” And all ofa sudden, all of a sudden in sayingthe words and actually speakingsentences, it was like a regrowthinside, where it starts right fromyour toes and just sort of comesright up and fills you with somethingthat was there all the time.1 N.B Tindale created maps in the1940s outlining the Indigenous groupboundaries that existed at the time offirst European settlement in Australia.