When? Sunday 13th August 2023, 5:30pm – 7pm
Where? WA (See location with tickets)
Price: $10 Entry
This talk will explain why language revival is (1) right, (2) beautiful, and (3) beneficial. In our current world, more and more groups are losing their intangible heritage. Language reclamation (e.g. Hebrew and the Barngarla Aboriginal language of South Australia), revitalization (e.g. Shanghainese and the Adnyamathanha Aboriginal language) and reinvigoration (e.g. Te Reo Māori and Welsh) are becoming increasingly relevant as more and more people seek to reconnect with their heritage, recover their cultural autonomy, empower their spiritual and intellectual sovereignty, and improve their wellbeing and mental health.
There is an urgent need to offer comparative insights, for example from the Hebrew revival, which resulted in a cross-fertilized Semito-European hybrid that I call “Israeli”.
Professor Ghil‘ad Zuckermann (D.Phil. Oxford, Ph.D. Cambridge) is Chair of Linguistics and Endangered Languages at the University of Adelaide. He is Elected Member of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS, since 2014).
Professor Zuckermann is the founder of Revivalistics, a new global, trans-disciplinary field of enquiry surrounding language reclamation, revitalization and reinvigoration. On 14 September 2011 he launched, with the Barngarla Aboriginal communities of Eyre Peninsula, South Australia, the reclamation of the Barngarla Aboriginal language. In 2017-2021 he was Chief Investigator in an NHMRC research project assessing language revival and mental health.
He is an elected member of the Foundation for Endangered Languages (FEL), and was President of the Australian Association for Jewish Studies (AAJS, 2017-2023), President of AustraLex in 2013-2015, Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Fellow in 2007–2011, and Gulbenkian Research Fellow at Churchill College Cambridge in 2000-2004.
He is a world-renowned Consultant and Expert Witness in (corpus) lexicography and (forensic) linguistics, in court cases all over the globe.