Kamilaroi children now have access to a suite of resources in their native language.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
On Thursday, Winanga-li Aboriginal Child and Family Centre launched the early learning resources, which include a collection of five books, an alphabet chart and songs.
The books feature children from Winanga-li families, including Mahaliah Pryor and Kason Pryor, and touch on themes including family and numeracy.
The project is the result of $55,000 funding through the state government under the Ninganah No More Aboriginal language program, which aims to increase the level of Aboriginal languages being taught in early childhood services.
Winanga-li was supported by Gunnedah Preschool in the venture, which was delivered by linguists Dr John Giacon and Dr Hilary Smith from the Australian National University.
Dr Smith said the project's purpose was "strengthening the community and strengthening the children for the future".
The New Zealander said she had a desire to create books in different languages and she was introduced to the Gamilaraay language when she met fellow linguist Dr Giacon.
He brought her to Gunnedah three years ago and she interviewed Gamilaroi people of all ages to "find out what they wanted in terms of the language".
"There was really strong support for reviving the language and using it for the future," she said.
Read also:
Dr Smith said they went "right back to the start" and worked on the alphabet, which proved to be tricky because Gamilaraay words don't start with a vowel sounds.
"We wanted to get meaningful words to represent the sounds," she said.
"The end product looks simple but it takes how long it takes ... the very first success was making the alphabet poster and sound files to go with that to go online.
"The point of books was to get beyond that to start looking at sentences ... we talked about books for years, ever since I got involved in Gamilaraay."
Dr Smith said it had been a great experience.
"We've just been overwhelmed by the positive response and because it is a quite an emotional journey [for Gamilaroi people] to actually have books in their language," she said.
"We'd like to continue; we will continue in some way as the funding is available."
Winanga-li director Wayne Griffiths said it was a "wonderful achievement" and they were "really proud" of the result.
"Language is starting to be repatriated by local people," he said.
"In the next few years we will look at ways of developing books in a way that's 100 per cent Gunnedah-driven, 100 per cent Gamilaroi-driven."
