Language development efforts in Laragia/Larrakia

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Language development efforts in Laragia/Larrakia

Sue McQuay, Thu, 2023-01-26 18:29
Regarding: 
Language Development
State
Closed
ISO 639-3: 
lrg

An article in Eternity magazine (Australia) briefly summarises recent language development work by AuSIL and others, resulting in a print and video publication of the story of Jesus’ birth from Luke’s Gospel in Larrakia. 

https://www.eternitynews.com.au/australia/birth-of-jesus-the-first-bible...

It also notes (with no citation):

1. "...the Larrakia language of the Darwin region, which is considered a sleeping language with no officially recorded speakers and declining numbers since the 1950s."

2. "...Dr Mark Harvey of the University of Newcastle, who is compiling a Larrakia dictionary."

- Harvey, Mark. 2004. Larrakia dictionary. ATSIC, Yirra Bandoo Aboriginal Corporation.

- https://asjp.clld.org/languages/LARRAKIA

AIATSIS provides further information about the language: https://collection.aiatsis.gov.au/austlang/language/N21

Comments

Chuck Fennig, Thu, 2023-02-02 08:41

Dear Sue,

Thank you for this information on the Laragia [lrg] language in Australia..

We will add the Christmas Story (as a selection) to the Ethnologue database, as well as the fact that there are no more "officially recorded speakers." I just put in the latest census report from the Australian 2021 Census which reported 14 speakers of Laragia, the same as the 2016 census.

Blessings,

Chuck Fennig
Managing Editor, Ethnologue

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