NAIDOC
WEEK
I.R.S. acknowledges the Traditional Custodians throughout Australia and recognises their strength, resilience and capacity. We pay our respects to them and their cultures; and to elders both past and present.
This year NAIDOC Week celebrations will be held from Sunday 2 July to Sunday 9 July 2017.
This year’s theme – Our Languages Matter – aims to emphasise and celebrate the unique and essential role that Indigenous languages play in cultural identity, linking people to their land and water and in the transmission of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history, spirituality and rites, through story and song.
Some 250 distinct Indigenous language groups covered the continent at first (significant) European contact in the late eighteenth century. Most of these languages would have had several dialects, so that the total number of named varieties would have run to many hundreds.
Today only around 120 of those languages are still spoken and many are at risk of being lost.
The theme for Naidoc Week 2017 is ‘Our Languages Matter’. Follow the latest news on Facebook.