00:00A unique event aimed at saving languages on the verge of extinction.
00:09The West Kimberley Language Gathering brings together 10 language groups from the Dampier
00:14Peninsula in what the organiser describes as an historic moment.
00:18It's a call for action by all our community members, young, old, to engage in language
00:23preservation, whether that's in schools, whether that's in family groups, whether any sort
00:29of way that we can bring back our language. Otherwise, if we don't practice it, it gets
00:35lost and it dies.
00:37Teacher Vincent Mackenzie's language, Badi, is among those critically endangered. He's
00:42now teaching it with the aim of keeping Badi alive.
00:45Our language is falling asleep. We have to keep it strong. We have to pass it on to our
00:53next generation.
00:54Delegates who have flown in from all across the country say events like these are key
00:59in making sure action is taken.
01:01There's a strong view more government support is needed to achieve the Closing the Gap target
01:06of increasing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander speakers by 2031.
01:10Language is no lesser important than our culture, our art, our storytelling in those ways and
01:18so forth. Yet, unfairly, those avenues are being funded far greater than what language
01:26itself is. Yet it's foundational to all of those other elements.
01:30Recognising the importance of language for preserving the world's oldest living culture.
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