Recently I have been thinking/writing lots about bilingual education, what it is, what it means, why it matters. I have been hanging out in Yirrkala and Galiwin’ku (Elcho Island) learning from many Yolngu, who don’t need to think academically about why bilingual learning is important- they feel it in their hearts, they feel their language intrinsically tied up with the environment to which they belong and the spirit of who they are.
I have many many hours of amazing recordings I would eventually, somehow, like to share. I am about to go away again but have this small piece to share now.
I caught up with Yiŋiya Guyula a Liya-Daḻinymirr man from the Djambarrpuyngu clan of North-East Arnhem Land. He is a Senior Lecturer of Yolngu Studies at Charles Darwin University. He’s also my uncle, through the clans system into which I’ve been adopted.
We had a bilingual conversation about bilingual education! My Yolngu Matha isn’t yet good enough to commit to transcribing the whole thing, but here is a section of the English story…
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I think it’s very important that Yolŋu students must speak their first language. That’s when they start growing up from a little child. They must know how to speak fluently ga properly. And then when they grow up, growing older, they must learn their own language – not a mixture of different languages that mixes in the community. They must learn their own tribal language as well.
I think what the government should do is consult- do it properly, consult. They shouldn’t just make up their mind, “this is what we want to do”, because they have the power or the money or whatever. They should come and consult and ask, and we should do it together.
My strong feeling is that bilingual language, bilingual education, should be equally done, as English language. Whether in class – because, in class, if English is just being taught – I think it should be bilingual, Yolŋu Matha should be taught in classes as well. It should be done at home, too, so afterwards, they can go back home and learn their own language, speak their own language. But is should be maintained, balanced, and the government and the Yolŋu out there should be confronted and consult with one another, how we should go about it. Whether to do bilingual education in classes as well or not. We should be asked about that.
[…A few minutes of Yolŋu Matha….] so it can be written, Yolŋu Matha can be written in classes, using Balanda (English - non-Yolngu) letters. At home, and out bush, children can learn, writing the same story through paintings, through artefacts, through songs and dances. And that is writing, writing a story, that is illustration on what a life of a Yolŋu should be. So, it should be written in Balanda way, in the classroom, along with English, and outside, at home, it can be painted. The story can be painted, and that is writing in Yolŋu culture, I believe.
And through working at artefacts, miyalk can learn how to weave baskets, men can learn how to get the right wood for spears, and woomera, ga clapsticks. And sing, sing that song, ga dance that song. So, that’s what I believe.
In Yolŋu Matha language, we have our own context of using languages. There are language that we can use day to day, saying nhämirr nhe and write that down on a board, on a paper, computer, whatever. This is just day to day language that we used. As the child grows older, they go deeper into who they are, getting the knowledge about what the land offers.
And there are bunggul (ceremony- legal, funeral, initiation etc): the language in songs and dances. The language in what the bark paintings hold, the language in the way to hunt, which way to go, what the wind is doing. The calculations of Yolngu Matha- there is mathematics in Yolngu Matha, and there is mathematics in English. So people should learn – they should start writing, in class, about this.
As the child grows older- towards 15, 16, that is when initiation ceremonies take place for them to become young men and women. And they should be able to write [about] those – either write them on the paper, through English way of writing, and go back home and write it in the form of paintings, bark paintings, and through the artefacts, and through songs and dances, the language that we use.
I think the best place to do a Yolngu education, bilingual language ga even Balanda education, is on the homelands. Homelands is the place where the story is, that is where the songs and dances are, that is where your identity is. It’s not in someone else’s community, it’s not in big towns where children are being disciplined through not much – distractions, television, earphones… You see your kids walking around with mobile phones with music sticking in their ears. I call that no discipline, undisciplined.
I am very against the earphones that our children listen to today. It is just disgusting, I hate it. I tell my children, “Don’t ever go the Balanda way. Take that thing out of your ears and listen to what the old people are saying. Listen to what the words in the songs and ceremonies are saying. Listen to what grandparents are telling you.”
And education on the homelands needs to be equally balanced. You take your children away from homelands and put them in boarding schools in town, they only learn about Balanda ways of living, Balanda language. And they’re missing out on something, on their culture.
I know, this happened to me. When I started working with the Mission Aviation Fellowship, I went down south. And during the age that I was, when ceremonies and everything was happening back home, and I was missing out on all that. And I nearly lost my culture, I nearly lost my language.
So I dropped everything, and had to come back home. To catch up. I came back just in time to participate in ceremonies, culture, songs and dances. And I am glad now. I was able to maintain both educations. Balanda ga Yolngu education.
The best place to teach our children is on the homelands, so they can see what plant we are talking about, they can see what image we are talking about – this is the image of the miyapunu (turtle), and you can hold it. You can stand on the ground and the spirits of your fathers are speaking – your own fathers are speaking from the ground where you belong. When I’m out here, in the big cities surrounded by brick walls, when I talk about the images to my children, they can’t really see what I’m talking about, unless they actually go out there. The land itself can explain. The land itself can talk.
And through Balanda way of studying on homelands – that’s where government needs to come in and give us access to fast internet services – skype, learning through teaching our students on country, from country.
I’ve done a lot of teaching on skype, from communities. Actually standing on the ground. And I’ve taken students on field trips, and I’ve spoken to them. And as soon as I speak , and start teaching, straight away the students understand what we’re talking about, because the whole country is talking. The whole environment is speaking, at it is alive.
And that’s what should happen to our children. They should pick up their education on the lands, on the country. The homelands must be supported by government. The government is wrong when they say there is no funding for homeland education, and [they] think [they] know the best is for Yolngu children to come into mainstream education centres. But I say they are wrong. Mainstream education for Yolngu must start on the homeland. That’s what I believe.
I think bilingual education did work – it did work and I am one of the students that learned both Yolngu Matha and Balanda Matha in class in school. And now I am here, working in the university teaching language and culture. I sometimes help John with grammar, suffixes, Yolngu Matha. In a way, that never spoiled the idea of education.
Yolngu Matha, bilingual language, bilingual education, was never in the way of mainstream education, balanda education. It fitted very, very well. It fitted perfectly. A lot of us are now teaching and I am able to write and I do lots of transcriptions, translations, for the stories that our old people have recorded. And they are there and I do lots of translations, transcriptions.
If I had never learned Yolngu Matha through bilingual education, like I did back in the ’70s, the late ’60s ’70s, I would never have got this far. I am here and at community as well. I teach language and culture to my children, the Yolngu children back home. And I teach language and culture to the mainstream — the balanda who want to learn, to do a part for their degree, for what they are studying. And when it comes to Indigenous studies, that’s where we come in. And that’s where I feel I come in strongly and I know I am fluent in both English and in Yolngu Matha writings.
So it did work and it does work and it is working for me right here, right now.
Let’s build a bridge to close that gap. That’s what I believe. Let’s build a bridge together. You don’t build it for me, we’ll build it together.
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