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ABC News
2 hours ago
- ABC News
Rediscovery of original Noongar place names in Perth captured on film
A two-year project to rediscover the original Noongar place names in Perth's southern suburbs has been captured on film. The film, Boodjara, which premiered this week, tells the story of how 14 Noongar elders came together to share what they learnt from their own ancestors, painstakingly reclaiming the original place names of the Melville area, in Perth's southern suburbs. Through long, careful conversations, they found not just names but stories. Yagan Mia (Wireless Hill) means "home of the long-necked turtle", an important food source, while Niergarup is Point Preston, and translates as "place of the salmon". Lucky Bay was known as Margamangup, "the place where they catch fish by hand from a fish trap". The film shows the work of reclaiming culture playing out at the same time as the failed Voice referendum. The film, Boodjara, charts the careful work elders did mapping the area and was shot by Noongar filmmaker Hugh Sando, recording the conversations that led to the rediscovery of the place names. "It was beautiful to watch," Sando told Jo Trilling on ABC Radio Perth. "These conversations unfolded, these stories were being told and I was able to document that in a way that you could share with the community, share with broader Australia. The cultural mapping involved a physical linen map that was unrolled at every meeting and hand-carved clay stamps were made to represent different places. Slowly, the project came together. "I think whenever you're exploring something that has been affected by colonisation, there's always going to be challenges," Sando said. "Thankfully, we have a group of elders that were involved in this project that care so deeply about language and about culture. "And through that, there's robust discussion. There's critical debate." He said for any place, knowing the traditional names was a way into learning about the culture and history. "When Noongar people would refer to a place, it was more often than not a description of what was there, a story about that place. "For me personally, it's so important and I think it should be important for everyone." The name of the film, Boodjara, means country. Sando said he hoped it inspired curiosity for people to learn not just more about Melville, but places all over Australia. "Everyone thrives on the culture of the places they visit," he said. "I would ask one thing from everyone that watches the film — be curious. Where am I? What does this place mean? What was this place before colonisation? "And how is this place still important? For the Noongar elders who took part in the project, it's a restoration of culture that will be felt for generations to come. During the course of filming, Australia voted no to creating the Voice to parliament. Geri Hayden, the cultural advisor on the place names project team, told the ABC last year it was about bringing Noongar stories to the fore for future generations. "It's about reviving the Noongar place names and identifying them and telling the meaning so that our future generations know that we do have a culture, we do have a law," Ms Hayden said. "It's very important that people know about it and especially our children who grow up in the society and the world around us. "We learn about all this European history stuff but they forget about our culture and that means our history too." Hugh Sando sees his film, and the cultural mapping journey it documents, as a way for First Nations culture to become stronger, despite the obstacles. "It was a privilege for me to sit in on those conversations and be able to not only document, but witness that process happen," he said. Boodjara was a collaboration between the Community Arts Network of Western Australia, Indigenous consultancy Moodjar and the City of Melville.
ABC News
4 hours ago
- ABC News
Native American fluency model reaches Central Australia in fight to save languages
A cross-continental partnership that could help to revive dozens of Australia's most endangered First Nations languages is taking root on Arrernte country. In a modest classroom at the Desert Peoples Centre in Alice Springs, Native American language educators from Washington State are sharing a method they say can do what once seemed impossible: create fluent speakers of endangered languages within a single year. The Fluency Transfer System (FTS) was developed by the Salish School of Spokane, an Indigenous immersion school that teaches preschool through to year 8 entirely in the Salish language. Last month the team behind that system landed in Mparntwe (Alice Springs) to share the blueprint with more than 45 Aboriginal language groups from across the country. Among the group is workshop organiser Vanessa Farrelly, the coordinator of the Pertame Language Nest, a preschool-style immersion program aiming to raise a generation of fluent speakers. She says the FTS is set apart by its track record. "It's like a road map to take someone who knows no language – a complete beginner – to being an advanced, fluent speaker," Ms Farrelly said. "And they've been able to do it reliably in just over a year." Ms Farrelly says her infant and toddler students will be the first generation in 50 years to be fluent in the language. "There are only about 20 speakers of Pertame left — they're all in the grandparent generation," she said. The FTS pairs confident speakers with learners and moves them through structured lessons given entirely in the target language. There is no translation, just repetition, body language and culturally embedded storytelling. For Salish School of Spokane executive director LaRae Wiley the approach is deeply personal. "I'd never heard my language growing up … [when] I turned about 35, I decided that I wanted to learn my language," she said. With only two fluent speakers of her language – Nsəlxcin – left in the United States, LaRae travelled to Canada with her husband Chris Parkin to live with a fluent elder and begin recording. They developed the FTS together and opened a school in her sister's basement. Fifteen years later the school has 48 students, including 23 intergenerational families and is the only three-generation Salish-speaking household in the US. "It's not just about language," Mr Parkin said. "It's about healing. It's about reclaiming identity, connecting with ancestors and rebuilding community. Grahm Wiley, Ms Wiley's son, teaches years 3 to 5 maths, science and reading entirely in Salish. His daughter is one of his students. "[My children] have a much better sense of self than I did when I was their age," Mr Wiley said. "When you're grounded in your culture … it allows you to go out into the world in a different way." The relationship between the Indigenous peoples of Central Australia and the Salish tribe started when a group of Pertame speakers, including Ms Farrelly, visited a Salish-led workshop in Montana. The two groups soon found they were deeply connected by shared histories of colonisation, dispossession and survival. "When we were presenting in Montana and they came to that workshop, we were flabbergasted," Mr Wiley said. "We were like, 'You came from where?'" Ms Farrelly said the Salish team's visit to Australia could not have been more timely. "It is critical that our Australian endangered language groups come together and look to Indigenous peoples globally to learn from the most successful pathways to grow new fluent speakers."
ABC News
5 hours ago
- ABC News
Why Sydney's oldest barbers won't put down the clippers and retire
In a corner below the ground floor of Sydney's near-century-old Cyprus Community Club in the city's inner west, one of Sydney's oldest "artists" is at work. Armed with scissors and a comb in a small barber shop he built in the club's dining hall in 1993, Kyriakos Vasilis is giving Arthur a trim. At 87, Mr Vasilis might be Sydney's oldest barber, but he insists he isn't working. "Hairdressing is not a job. Hairdressing is an art," Mr Vasilis says. Despite officially retiring 15 years ago, Mr Vasilis regularly cuts the hair of members of the Cypriot community in his little shop for no charge. He says they might buy him a drink later as payment in kind, but he doesn't expect it. Despite suffering health scares that would spell the end of some careers — he's been battling prostate cancer and had a seizure two years ago — he says the work is nothing he can't handle. "If it was physically demanding, I wouldn't be doing it," Mr Vasilis says. Occasionally, he also works at a barber shop down the road from the club, run by his friend Con Apostolopoulos. At 84, Mr Apostolopoulos is just a few years younger than Mr Vasilis. He was 20 when he came to Australia from Greece, and says he's worked as a barber in Sydney ever since. Mr Apostolopoulos says all his customers are regulars, and have been for "over 50 years, close to 60 years". His barber shop opens six days a week, and he wants to keep working for as long as he feels he can. When ABC Radio Sydney visited Mr Apostolopoulos earlier this year, he was taking a break from cutting hair after having a pacemaker fitted. Although Mr Vasilis was filling in for him, Mr Apostolopoulos still turned up to man the till behind the service counter. "I've told him numerous times to retire and stay home, but it just keeps him going," Mr Apostolopoulos's daughter, Virginia, said. Another veteran barber, Guido Piccirilli, first picked up the clippers as a boy of 15. Mr Piccirilli, now 78, started working in his St Mary's barber shop in Western Sydney in 1962. He says he would have stopped six years ago when his son took over the business, but they struggled to find someone who could work just three days a week, so he stayed on. Like Mr Vasilis and Mr Apostolopoulos, it's the social aspect of the job that keeps him going. "I'll get people coming in and they'll say, 'I haven't seen you for 30 years! My god, you're still here!'," Mr Piccirilli said. "I'll be honest. I don't even get a little bit of money there … just more or less for fun." Australians are increasingly working into their old age, according to an Australian Institute of Health and Welfare analysis of Census data. The workforce participation rate of Australians aged 65 and over more than doubled from 6.1 per cent in 2000 to 15 per cent in 2021. Patricia Sparrow, chief executive officer of the Council on the Ageing (COTA), said this could be beneficial to the modern workplace. "What we actually know is the best workplaces, and the most productive workplaces, are actually intergenerational and multi-generation workplaces," Ms Sparrow said. Ms Sparrow said most older Australians who kept working were either doing it for financial reasons or because they did not want to give up the social interactions that came with the job. "Others will talk about the fact that they have really missed having the purpose that having a job sometimes will give," she said. The older barbers said a sense of purpose was their main motivation to continue working. "What can I do if I retire? You know, [I'm] only myself, my wife passed away a long time," Mr Apostolopoulos said. As Mr Vasilis carefully trims a client's hair on the other side of the barber shop, he gives a more poetic response. "When you come to a shop, it reminds you of your past and what you are, and you know, you like to meet people," Mr Vasilis said. "I'm not a person that likes to go in a corner and waits to die."
