Language Revival

Ambēyaŋ language revivalist Callum Clayton-Dixon teaching Anaiwan at a community garden workshop in 2015.

The Armidale Aboriginal Community Garden supports the Anaiwan Language Revival Program. The Anaiwan Language Revival Program is a community-based and community-driven Anaiwan language revival effort. Callum Clayton-Dixon is spearheading this program, and is also a member of the Armidale Aboriginal Community Garden committee. He understands language as a relational tool for cultivating counter-colonial communities and ways of being in the world:

For indigenous peoples, language is not simply a tool for communication; language is a medium for relating with kin and country in a healthy and proper way. Colonization has dislocated people from country, and the same has happened to our language. Decolonization is therefore the undoing of this destructive process. Our language was written down on pages now gathering dust in library and university archives. The people speaking our language were written out of history, along with much of the cultural context and connection to country inherent in Aboriginal languages. In putting community, country, and culture back into the language, we are determined to breathe new life into our ancient tongue, and this is just the beginning of a long journey ahead.

In the second half of 2018 the Community Garden will host Anaiwan language workshops designed and facilitated by the Anaiwan Language Revival Program. We are hoping to fund Dunghutti, Gamilaraay and Gumbaynggirr workshops in the near future.

You can view the crowdfunding video for the Anaiwan Language Revival Program below.

Update: Since May 2019, the Armidale Aboriginal Community Garden has been managed by the Nēwara Aboriginal Corporation (formerly the Anaiwan Language Revival Program).