Student Stories

Two students from the Senior Australian and Torres Strait Islander Languages class share their language stories…

MY LANGUAGE STORY – By Aaliyah Brim

I grew up in a small village called Kuranda but lived in a small family community called Mantaka. This place was run by all of the elders in Mantaka, all 8 of my great grandmother’s children. In Mantaka we lived next to the Barron river where we could camp, swim/bath. There were plenty of swimming places there. We called some of them ‘Big Sands’ (because there was a lot of sand) and ‘Snake Island’ which wasn’t really an island, but it had lots of snakes. There was also a place called ‘Mona Mona’. It was a mission in the middle of nowhere. My great grandfather owns that land and that’s where my grannies grew up. I mostly speak English and sometimes put a bit of broken English or Djabugay language in when I’m talking to my mum or grandmothers. I don’t really know how to speak my language fluently because we haven’t been taught completely how to speak it. My mum and grandmother both speak English, but my grandmother speaks Djabugay (not fluently) more often than my mum because she didn’t really learn it. My dad and grandmother both grew up speaking Papua New Guinean, but my dad forgot how to speak it because when they moved to Australia, he hung out with people who only spoke English. My grandmother, on the other hand, has never forgotten and now she speaks both languages. When I was younger my mum would take me to playgroup instead of kindergarten and at playgroup, we learnt how to speak our own Djabugay language and learnt how to say different parts of our body in language. I think that learning languages in school is definitely important because it would be a shame to not know any other languages at all. It would make someone feel left out because it’s like having a culture but not knowing how to express it. Since I can’t speak any of my language fluently, I think that not being able to learn it or not being taught it is a let-down because we’re supposed to carry on our culture and not forget it.

MY LANGUAGE STORY – By Savanna Forbes

When I was in primary school, I didn’t realise there was a different language. I was in grade 5 when I first learnt that the Kriol language I spoke was different to English.

All of my friends spoke Kriol and we had to learn proper English in school. Some of our teachers didn’t understand what we were saying, and some did understand. My mum told me to speak English so the teachers in school could understand me.

Knowing 2 languages is a good thing because it opens the doors to high school and jobs.

When I speak my Kriol language, I feel like I’m at home. I feel comfortable and feel like I belong to something bigger. It connects me with my family and my culture and my community. It makes me feel really confident speaking my language anywhere I go.

Speaking my language in another country it’s like I’m back home speaking to my friends and family.