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| Indigenous communities number under half a million in today's Australia |
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Librariansin Australia have launched a three-year project to rediscover lost indigenouslanguages.
The NewSouth Wales State Library says fragments of many lost languages exist in papersleft by early settlers.
BeforeBritish colonialisation began there in 1788, around 250 aboriginal languageswere spoken in Australia by an estimated one million people.
Only a fewdozen languages remain and the communities number around 470,000 people in anation of 22 million.
'Unrivalled'accounts
"Anation's oral and written language is the backbone to its culture," saidthe Arts Minister of New South Wales, George Souris.
"Thepreservation of the languages and dialects of our indigenous citizens is a veryimportant project in this regard."
NoelleNelson, the acting chief executive of Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto,which is backing the project, said the settlers' first-hand accounts at theState Library are "unrivalled".
"Thesefirst-hand accounts are often the only surviving records of many indigenous languages,"Nelson told the AFP news agency.
"Theproject will introduce and reconnect people with indigenous culture."
AnAustralian government survey in 2004 found that only 145 indigenous languageswere still spoken in Australia and that 110 of these were severely orcritically endangered.
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| Brazil's indigenous protection service says the area threatened by drug traffickers has 'the greatest concentration of isolated groups the world'. Photograph: Gleison Miranda/AFP/Getty Images |
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