women th e wo r ld m u st hear
Pertame rrweketya mapala ngketya nwernaka ilkerta nthurra mparema
Pertame Women Are Making Our Language Strong
Pertame family members during an Adult Language Class in Alice Springs. L-R: Brittany Swan, Sharlene Swan, Leeanne Swan, Kayla Dashwood, Michelle Swan, Abby-lee Dodd, Justyse Nandy, Auriel Swan, Shania Armstrong, Christobel Swan, Sumaiya Nandy, Samantha Armstrong, Diandra Armstrong, and Max King. Photo by Vanessa Farrelly.
Children playing hand- clapping games in Pertame as part of the Pertame Primary School program. Photo by Emmanuelle Clarke.
Vanessa Ngala Farrelly (Pertame Southern Arrernte)
P
ertame, or southern Arrernte, is an Indigenous Australian language that belongs to the country south of Alice Springs in central Australia. Pertame is a severely endangered language with only 10-20 Elders still with us who are fluent speakers. The grandparent and great grandparent generation of Pertame people grew up on their homelands speaking Pertame as their first language every day with their extended family together as one. Due to central Australia’s colonial history, Pertame is no longer the language spoken in the homes of most Pertame families or taught to the children as their first language. Without serious action, Pertame will be lost within the next generation. Our Pertame Language Revival Program aims to breathe life into our language again by growing the next generation of Pertame fluent speakers to create a culturally strong, connected, and thriving Pertame community. Our entire language program is run by strong Pertame women because
6 • www. cs. org
we are the people who are raising the children, who are the future of our language. Our Pertame matriarch, Christobel Swan, is the backbone of our program. She has memories of receiving physical punishment at school for speaking Pertame, yet she never forgot her language. I would always hear her say, “why should I speak English? That’s not my language.” She was in the first group of Aboriginal interpreters in Australia, working for 30 years within the courts and hospitals and with the police to translate for Aboriginal people. She also co-created the first Pertame wordlist in the 1990s, when the linguistic world did not acknowledge Pertame as its own language. Today, at age 75, Swan is with us every day, gifting us our language. She was just awarded the prestigious honor of National Aboriginal and Islanders Day Observance Committee Female Elder of the Year for 2021. My passion for language grew with my connection to Nana Chrissy. I grew up in Canberra and moved to Alice Springs when I was 20 years old. I would volunteer every week, joining my nana and a linguist as they worked to record the Pertame language. I was so thirsty to hear and learn my heritage language, which I never had exposure to growing up. Eventually I took on more responsibility over the language program, working with my auntie to run a few community language camps on our homeland. But I knew that four weekend-long camps a year were not enough to save our language. I knew something was missing.
