From opposite sides of the world the Pertame people of Central Australia and the Yuchi tribe of Oklahoma have built a strong connection through a shared fight to save their first languages. A Yuchi delegation has been in Alice Springs meeting with their Pertame brothers and sisters to share strategies for Indigenous language revival.
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00:00For the first time in 100 years, Yuchi is being spoken as a first language by a child.
00:13We dropped to one and then from her we've been able to create at least 40 to 60 speakers
00:19now.
00:20When it was taken from us they started with the children by taking the children and taking
00:25the language from the children so it's, we're kind of reversing that damage by starting
00:30with our children.
00:31Once declared extinct by anthropologists, Yuchi is being revived, not just preserved
00:37but spoken as a living language.
00:39It's a revival that brings hope to the Pardum people who now have less than 30 language
00:44speakers.
00:45I think that really inspired me, it's like if they can do it then so can we.
00:54The two groups have come together in Alice Springs to exchange language saving strategies
00:59while many of their people struggle on society's fringes.
01:04Without our languages our youth began to become lost, we have real issues with substance abuse
01:12and suicide rates.
01:14Nobody is going to come and save us, we have to learn how to save ourselves.
01:19We have to learn to do for ourselves and it was just a part of that commitment and that
01:24want to be who creator made me.
01:29It's a battle the Pardum community can relate to.
01:32We're trying to reverse the damage of assimilation, government policies and language loss when
01:42we lose the elder ones by growing up, younger ones now to become first or second language
01:48speakers of Pardum.
01:50Two cultures on opposite poles with a common goal.