ISRAELI-BORN linguistics professor Ghil’ad Zuckermann  hopes to resurrect some of the dead languages of the Aboriginal people by applying the lessons learnt from the revival of Hebrew.

Prof Zuckermann, who recently became Australia’s first chair of endangered languages at the University of Adelaide, estimated that of the 250 known Aboriginal languages, only 15 are still widely spoken.

“That means the other 235 original languages are either sleeping beauties or endangered, either dead or about to die,” the Oxford and Cambridge-educated academic told The AJN.

He said these languages deserved to be revived for “historical justice and social equality”, and even went so far as to suggest that Aborigines’ cultural connection to their language was more important than ties to their land. Read more.

See: The Australian Jewish News