We are pleased to launch the Yolŋu Matha version of our animation ‘Caring for country: managing cats’, available for viewing below. This animation highlights the importance of surgical desexing to prevent cat overpopulation at the community scale.
Did you know there are over 250 Indigenous languages, including around 800 dialects, across Australia? With our work in collaboration with remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, we respect and value this diversity. We embed this in our work by translating important messages into multiple Indigenous languages, in collaboration with Indigenous language centres and interpreter services. We hope our support of Indigenous languages in Australia contributes in a small way to the International Decade of Indigenous Languages (2022-2032) which aims to draw global attention to the critical situation of many Indigenous languages, and to work more effectively to preserve, revitalise and promote them.
The extent to which Indigenous languages are documented is highly variable. Yolŋu Matha is a family of languages spoken in north-east Arnhem Land. There is a great Yolŋu Matha online dictionary developed by Charles Darwin University available, which notes that there are still thousands of words that have not yet been recorded.
The original version of this animation featured arid zone wildlife, such as the Greater Bilby. This version is a little bit different. It is set in the savannas of northern Australia and features the Brush-tailed rabbit-rat, Masked Owl, and the Savanna Glider.
All our cross-cultural communication work is a collective effort. We would like to thank Max Foo Animation for their work to develop this new version. We thank the fabulous team at First Nations Broadcasting Australia for doing the translations and narrations, and for their generous support of our work. Most of all, we thank the wonderful supporters whose donations made this project possible.
