Australia’s first nomenclaturists were those who first settled country, and in doing so
began to utilise our plants and animals for food, tools, shelter, medicines and
ceremony. During the more than 50,000 years of living on and with the land,
Indigenous people have developed a rich nomenclature for taxa used in these
ways. In each language group, specific words are used for around 10% of plants
in the area, sometimes with multiple words for one Western-accepted species
when there are multiple uses or different life stages are used. With many
language groups and many species across Australia, this is a very large body of
knowledge.
With the historical and ongoing disruptions to traditional knowledge, languages and cultural activities, many of these words, and their connections to knowledge, are endangered. This loss would be a tragedy, particularly as it would foreclose important connections to country for present and future generations.
I propose that by 2028, as part
of the decadal plan, we will have implemented a national mechanism for
recording these names for all language groups in Australia, in close and
meaningful collaboration with their custodians and the communities for whom
they are meaningful. This will be done in ways that are fully cognizant of the
potential for cross-cultural miscommunication in any endeavour like this.
Importantly, it will be done with due respect for the deep knowledge tradition
that’s being recorded, and in a way that’s most appropriate for the needs of
communities and of Indigenous people, rather than in ways that are most
convenient for us. The prime goal is to record words for the language-speakers,
with any advantages to our own community secondary.
Specifically, this program will not:
- Send out inexperienced people to record names as a shallow, one-off exercise – this would be disrespectful;
- Record names in ways and on platforms that are convenient for us but of little use to communities – this would be useless;
- Be rolled out with minimal consultation from communities themselves – this would not generate trust;
- Be rolled out as a one-size-fits-all program – this would be ineffective.
The program could work like this:
- A strategic assessment will be made, in collaboration with linguistic and cultural experts, of language groups throughout Australia that still have strong cultural knowledge of plant and animal names, but with the knowledge endangered by imminent loss of cultural custodians and first-language speakers;
- In each state or region, one or more skilled, retired botanists be identified and approached, to take part in the program;
- After training and with appropriate support, the botanists will build relationships with their counterparts in communities, and seek community views on the need to record names, and the most appropriate ways to do this
- During repeat visits, with support from linguists contracted as part of the program, names will be recorded in as simple and straightforward a way as possible
- Names will be provided back to communities in whatever format they consider most useful, as well as recorded in national databases to ensure they are safe in the medium to long term.
{Thanks very much to Glenn Whiteman, NT Herbarium, for useful discussions on this idea.}