NEW SOUTH WALES, AUSTRALIA —With less than 20 native speakers left, the Paakantyi community is finding ways to preserve its culture and language. 

The Paakantyi (also known as Barkindji) is an Australian Indigenous community from the Darling River region of what is now New South Wales (NSW).

Now, the language is considered critically endangered by the Endangered Languages Project (ELP). 

“You can’t have the language without the culture," said Amanda King, a member of the Paakantyi community. King taught the language, which she learned from her father-in-law, at Menindee Central School for over five years. “It is a part of who we are.” 

In modern-day Australia, nearly 90% of Aboriginal languages are endangered, according to the National Archives of Australia (NAA). However, this issue is not isolated in Australia. The ELP states there are over 3,000 endangered languages worldwide, about 43% of today’s languages. 

The Paakantyi, similar to other Indigenous communities, were stripped of their cultural identity during Australia’s assimilation policies during the 20th century, according to the Australian Museum. Indigenous children were removed from their homes, forced to assimilate, and were prohibited from speaking their native tongue. 

Now, Indigenous communities, like the Paakantyi, across Australia are making efforts to revitalize their languages through the schools, community organized associations, and art. 

Revival efforts in education 

In 2014, the NSW Department of Education added Paakantyi to many schools' core curriculum, according to the department.

Faith Baisden, a member of the Yugambeh community, is an author and director of Banibar Books, which provides teachers and communities with children's books in a variety of Aboriginal languages. 

After working nationally with the first languages, Baisden noticed the lack of linguistic resources in communities. 

“These are the oldest spoken languages on the planet, and it's just a complete disaster if Australia loses them, or if the world loses them,” Baisden said. 

To combat the lack of resources available for learning Aboriginal languages, Baisden focused her energy on children’s books. Banibar Books sells print copies as well as CDs on its website and in book stores. For instructors, “teacher packs” include curriculum notes and multiple print copies. 

“To bring it back, we have to start teaching children again,” Baisden said. “Children are wonderful learners.” 

Working alongside community members, Baisden structured her stories to be easily adaptable to different languages. She has written and sold children’s language books in Paakantyi, Awabakal (from the Newcastle/Southeastern region), and her community's language, Yugambeh (from the Gold Coast/Eastern region). 

“It's about establishing identity and pride in your heritage. It's about the uniqueness of your own family and your own history,” Baisden said. “We want to see pride in the faces of young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children acknowledging that their history and their family are really important.” 

The Paakantyi Language Sharing Circle

Murray Butcher learned the language from his great-grandmother, Sarah, and is now a semi-fluent speaker. Butcher started his career as a cultural consultant at Wilcannia Central School, then moved on to Murray Health as a CEO. Butcher now serves as the Aboriginal student support for Technical and Further Education (TAFE) in Broken Hill, Australia’s first Heritage Town, in New South Wales.

In the early 2010s, Butcher founded the Paakantyi Language Sharing Circle to inspire members of the Paakantyi community to learn their native tongue outside the schools. 

The group still meets in 2025, and has about 20 members, although Butcher is no longer actively involved. 

“Language is key to your identity, it's a key to who you are. And when you got language, you know who you are,” Butcher said. 

Butcher advocates for more community-led language revitalization.

“Our people need to take control again of our language and teach it, not in the classroom, but where the language lives and breeds in the country and through practicing culture, through fishing, through hunting, through interacting with family and all those kinds of things,” Butcher said. “That is where our language will survive, not through the school.” 

There are not many native speakers left. Butcher knows about five. King knows only one. 

Paakantyi is just one of numerous Indigenous languages ​​at critical risk of extinction.

“A lot of people say Aboriginal languages are in danger of being lost, and we Barkindji people always said it was sleeping, and it was our job to reawaken it,” King said. 

Through the perseverance of the Paakantyi, like many other Aboriginal communities, their language, stories, and culture are being reclaimed. 

“We need to take that ownership back,” Butcher said. 

His advice to other endangered languages: "Speak it. Speak it, and don’t let it go to a whisper.”

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Located just 22 kilometers from the French coast, the island of Jersey is a self-governing British Crown Dependency. Hidden within this small paradise is a linguistic gem fighting for survival.

Jèrriais is a Romance language spoken on the island of Jersey, in the Channel Islands, located between France and England.

In 2011, there were just under 1,900 native speakers of Jèrriais on Jersey, despite it being the island's historic language.

Its closest relatives are other Norman languages, such as Guernésiais, spoken on the island of Guernsey, and Sercquiais, spoken on the island of Sark.

Although it was once the primary language of Jersey, the number of native speakers began to decline in the 19th century, and it is now considered at risk of extinction.

Awareness of the language's declining use became evident in academic circles during the 19th century. Among foreign linguists, Luigi Luciano Bonaparte visited Jersey and took an interest in the language and its literature. Victor Hugo, during his exile in Jersey, also took an interest in the language and counted several Jèrriais writers among his circle of acquaintances and supporters.

The use of Jèrriais is also documented during the German occupation of the Channel Islands in World War II; the local population used it among themselves as a language that neither the occupying Germans nor their French interpreters could understand.

Within a generation of the war, most schoolchildren spoke only a few words, and by the 1980s and 1990s, the language had all but vanished from daily use. Suddenly, the island faced the very real prospect that Jèrriais might disappear completely, just as its sister language, Auregnais, had a century earlier.

Enthusiasts hope that Jersey will follow the example of another British Crown Dependency—the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea—which has revived its local language, Manx.

Since then, a concerted campaign has been waged to pull the language back from the brink. Since 1999, the year *L'Office du Jèrriais* was founded, the language has experienced a rapid revival. Over the last decade, the development of an educational program has enabled all children in Jersey to learn the language at school. Adult classes and language cafés have allowed older people to learn the basics or brush up on their vocabulary. Road signs and tourist sites are now all multilingual (in English and Jèrriais) to increase the language's visibility.

But the most important thing is that, in 2019, Jèrriais reached a significant milestone: for the first time in its history, it was adopted by the island's government—the States of Jersey—as an official language alongside English and French.

Currently, the only media available in Jèrriais is a five-minute weekly broadcast on BBC radio.

There is a website dedicated to the Jersey language: *Les Pages Jèrriaises*. This site offers a wealth of cultural and linguistic information about the Norman language of Jersey.

Jèrriais is not merely a relic of the past; it is a living link to the island's history, and the language's resilience is remarkable. Despite the rise of English and French, Jèrriais has endured, passed down from generation to generation as the language of ordinary people—farmers and fishermen, storytellers and poets.

"We are losing speakers among the elderly faster than we are gaining them among the young," warned linguist and teacher Geraint Jennings, who is responsible for promoting Jèrriais at the charity Jersey Heritage.

However, the language is sparking interest among some young Jersey residents, such as Atticus Mawby, a 21-year-old student.

"If Jèrriais were to die out, Jersey would become just another part of Britain, and that would be incredibly sad," he says.

This unique linguistic heritage of Jersey, despite facing challenges regarding the number of speakers, continues to be an important part of the island's cultural identity.

"What we haven't grasped is just how important these ties to the language are for us islanders," said Francois Le Maistre, one of the last native speakers of Jèrriais. "Jèrriais is part of our culture. It is part of our folklore, our history. Our language is so rich in words, phrases, and expressions that simply have no equivalent in English. If Jèrriais disappears, we aren't just losing words. It is much more than that. We are losing part of who we are."

Some words in the Jèrriais language:

• Good morning → bouônjour
• Goodbye → à bétôt
• Water → ieau
• Sea → mé
• Fish → paîsson
• Turtle → tortue
• Sun → solé
• Moon → leune
• Star → êtaile
• Cat → cat
• Cow → vaque
• House → maîson

In Jèrriais, "to sleep like a porpoise" — *dormi comme un pourpais* — means to sleep well.

Article about the Jèrriais language: https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20211109-islanders-seek-to-revive-jersey-s-native-tongue

Jèrriais vocabulary: https://members.societe-jersiaise.org/sdllj/vocab.txt

Dictionary Jèrriais: https://dictionary.jerriais.tech/

Learn Jèrriais: https://utalk.com/en/store/jerriais

On August 29 at 10AM EST, Professor Howe from UGA is giving a free linguistics talk open to the public (on Zoom). Register here for free! -- https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/ticketing/prof-howe-uga-speaker-forum-linguistics-talk

On Sept. 12 at 10AM EST, Dr. Everdell from Boston University is giving a free linguistics talk open to the public as well (also, on Zoom). Register for that talk for free here! -- https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/ticketing/dr-everdell-bu-speaker-forum-linguistics-talk

Share these opportunities with friends who might be interested.

Just some recent work.

I want to learn Michif and Maori. You can find out if a language is endangered by searching for it on ethnologue.com.