Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander listeners are advised that this program features the voices of those who have died.
A comment at a funeral pushes Toby Hemmings to discover what his grandfather, Bill Hoddinott, recorded on reel-to-reel tapes back in the 1960s. Bill was an Oxford-educated linguist who taught English literature at the University of New England. On the side he recorded Aboriginal languages on tape from local elders, fuelled by his own curiosity. These tapes have been used to help revive language and keep it alive.
But there are also the languages that Bill doesn’t record extensively – including one that was supposedly extinct, Anaiwan. Looking back on the language his grandfather missed and the tapes he recorded, Toby finds a community that rebuilt their own language back from fragments as well as a new sense of who his grandfather was.
Guests
- Susan Hoddinott
- Carol Green
- Callum Clayton Dixon
- Frances Kofod
You can find out more about the W G Hoddinott Collection here and you can find out more about the Anaiwan revival movement here.