Mandarin, Arabic, Italian and Chinese are the top four most spoken
languages in Australia.
Despite this, there is a
clear hierarchy of languages in Australia: English taking the number one
position. Australia is well known for being generally enthusiastic about its
multicultural society, and is currently in a social and political space where
“unity” has overtaken “diversity” as the preferred political discourse. It was
not until recently, that the ACT (Australian Capital Territory) government's
Language Pathways Plan programme showed a positive increase in public school
students studying languages.
The second most popular
languages are the “classical” ones, such as French and German, which makes me
wonder – what about the indigenous languages? What happened to them? The
answer? …there are more than 250 indigenous languages to choose from. It is
shocking that most of us are no able to name a single one, especially taking
into account that many words used in English derive from the many indigenous
languages; still in use by many who hold tight to their cultural heritage.
“It seems, in Australia, if you learned your second
language at school or at university - that’s clever and admirable. If your
bilingualism comes from your heritage, we’d prefer to ignore it.” - Misty Adoniou
Bilingualism is associated with a range of benefits for young learners including improved creativity, higher test scores and mental agility. Let’s hope that the many economic, cognitive, social and political advantages of multilingualism are taken into account: that Australia starts celebrating its linguistic diversity by introducing many more language programmes and spreading awareness of Indigenous languages like Warlpiri, Yolngu Matha or Arrente.
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