“This is our land. It goes back, a long way back, into the Dreamtime, into the land of our Dreaming. We made our camp here, and now all that is left of our presence are the ashes and the bones of the dead animals the young men had killed. Soon even our footprints will be carried away by the wind.”
Aboriginals were the real founders of Australia because they came to this land thousands of years before white people discovered it. In 1988 white Australians celebrated 200 years of white settlement in this country. But Aboriginals have been here for at least 40,000 years. When white people came to Australia, they came to a land that already belonged to the Aboriginals. No one knows exactly where the Aboriginals lived before they came to Australia. It is known that Aboriginals came from somewhere in South-East Asia and that they left their homes and traveled to Australia in canoes or on rafts. Australian aboriginal culture is the oldest living culture in the world – at least 40,000 years old.
There has existed over 250 Aboriginal languages in Australia with many dialects spoken.
WDo you happen to know what percentage of Aborogins still live in Australia, and in which parts?
ReplyDeleteThis question is interesting because I have the understanding that Aborigins were almost erradicated with extreme violence coming from the invasion and from the state after, it would be great if you could find some information about this
ReplyDeleteI would like to know how is it known that the Rhoetosaurus lived in Australia although no skeleton of a dinosaur has been found there?
ReplyDeleteI do really want to know if you could search and upload more information about Aboriginal Australian languages; specifically data of their grammar.
ReplyDeletecan you tell more about white people? becouse i guess, the white people werw very rude whit Aboriginals
ReplyDeleteI would prefer know more about the nowadays history about this country, because I think the past is interesting but I want to know more about the XX´s century for example. =D
ReplyDeleteViviana =)
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ReplyDeleteIn the late 18th century, there were between 350 and 750 distinct Aboriginal social groupings, and a similar number of languages or dialects. At the start of the 21st century, fewer than 150 indigenous languages remain in daily use, and all except roughly 20 are highly endangered. Of those that survive, only 10%, usually located in the most isolated areas, are being learned by children. For example, of the 5 least endangered Western Australian Aboriginal languages, 4 belong to the Ngaanyatjarra grouping of the Central and Great Victoria Desert. Bilingual education is being used successfully in some communities. Seven of the most widely spoken Australian languages, such as Warlpiri and Tiwi, retain between 1,000 and 3,000 speakers. Some Aboriginal communities and linguists show support for learning programs either for language revival proper or for only "post-vernacular maintenance" (teaching indigenous Australians some words and concepts related to the lost language).
ReplyDeleteThe Tasmanian people were nearly eradicated early in Australia's colonial history, and their languages were lost before much was recorded. Tasmania was separated from the mainland at the end of the last ice age, and the Tasmanian Aborigines apparently remained isolated from the outside world for around 10,000 years. Too little is known of their languages for classification, though they seem to have had phonological similarities with languages of the mainland.
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