Author: Annabel Pratley

History of Aborginial Language booklet
Including:
Yarrie Lingo
Yidinji Language
Australian Kriol
Torres Strait Creole
Created By Annabel Pratley

Why I created this Booklet
This Booklet was created to allow children and adults to be encouraged to learn their traditional language. This website features four languages that are present in Far North Queensland - Yarrie Lingo - Yidinji Language - Australian Kriol - Torres Strait Creole This booklet provides a brief history on these languages, allow you to understand the traditional languages of Far North Queensland . Thank you for using The Aboriginal Language History Booklet

History Of Aboriginal Language
At the time of the white settlement there was estimated 250 distinct Indigenous Language in Australia. Over half of these languages no longer used. Many of those remaining are known to only a handful elders and face obvious extinction without urgent steps being taken to record these languages. In remote areas of Australia, relative isolation from white influences has resulted in the continued use of the local languages. Even though the languages are quite different from each other, many Indigenous speakers are fluent in more than one, reflecting the interaction between different language groups and fluid boundaries. Indigenous Australians are warning that the country's cultural heritage is at risk unless more is done to ensure the survival of Indigenous languages.

History of Yarrie lingo
Yarrie Lingo that are spoken by many Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander families throughout Queensland. Yarrie Lingo, a creole spoken in Far North Queensland, is the everyday language of most Yarrabah residents and the first language of most children there. Yarrie Lingo developed because the mission settlement at Yarrabah established an entirely new speech community where speakers of up to 40 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island languages were brought into contact within the first decades of its existence from 1893 onwards. No official spelling system exists for Yarrie Lingo at this time so English spelling has been adapted to represent Yarrie Lingo as accurately as possible

History of The Yidinji Language
The Yidinji people represented one of the largest Indigenous tribes of the Cairns area. Yidinji is a nearly extinct Australian Aboriginal language, spoken by the Yindinji tribe of northern Queensland. There are approximately 150 native speakers of the Yindinji Language. The Yidinji Yabanday, or tribal lands, covered a large area of Queensland, from the Barron River in the north, to the Russell River in the south; from the Murray Prior Range in the east, to Tolga in the west. Today, some Yindinji people, like many other Indigenous Australians, continue to live as their ancestors did.

History of Australian Kriol
Australian Kriol was used initially in the region of Sydney and Newcastle in New South Wales in the early days of White colonization, and that then moved west and north. The pidgin died out in most parts of the country, except in the Northern Territory, where the contact between European settlers, Chinese and other Asians and the indigenous people in the northern regions of Australia has maintained a vibrant use of the language. It is presently spoken by about 30,000 people A problem facing many communities in Northern Australia is that creole-speaking children are treated as though they speak English, but speak it badly; so they do not receive education in English as a second language.

History of Torres Strait Creole
It is spoken on several Torres Strait Islands (Queensland, Australia), Northern Cape York and South-Western Coastal Papua. This Torres Strait Creole is also known as Blaikman Tok, Broken/Brokan and Yumplatok. It has five dialects, Papuan, Western-Central, Eastern, TI and Cape York. Creole languages are oral in nature. Students who speak these languages have not had the opportunity to learn to read and write in their first language. Torres Strait Creole is also spoken by most Islanders, which is a mixture of traditional languages and Standard Australian English.