The Living Archive of Aboriginal Languages (LAAL) (http://laal.cdu.edu.au)/ will be launched by The Honorable Sharman Stone, Member for Murray. Dr Stone was deputy chair of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs which in 2012 produced the report ‘Inquiry into language learning in Indigenous communities’

A public lecture entitled ‘Aboriginal languages, literatures and technologies in the Northern Territory since the 1970s’ will be given by Professor Michael Christie from Charles Darwin University following the launch. Professor Christie will reflect on over 40 years involvement with bilingual education, linguistics and literature production in the Northern Territory, and the ways in which Aboriginal philosophies and pedagogies have influenced the production and use of literature over the years.

LAAL, an ARC-funded project, contains thousands of books in Australian Aboriginal languages produced in the Northern Territory during the era of bilingual education that are now digitised with permission for public access.

The archive has been devised to be of use to both the remote Aboriginal communities of origin in the intergenerational transmission of traditional knowledge, and to the international research community interested in working collaboratively with Aboriginal languages, texts, and their owners.

The archive contains books in over 25 Indigenous languages from 20 different communities, and includes traditional stories, language instruction, histories, songs, experience stories, ethno-scientific texts and others.

Stage two of the archive project has been funded to radically extend the range of texts, and to engage language owners, educators, and researchers in exploring, enriching and engaging with the archive.

The event is part of a larger workshop on Aboriginal languages sponsored by ANU.

For information visit http://chl.anu.edu.au/languages/alw2014.php 

Secure your seat at  http://livingarchive.eventbrite.com.au