Abstract: This paper proposes the enactment of an ex gratia compensation scheme for loss of Indigenous languages in Australia. Although some Australian states have enacted ex gratia compensation schemes for the victims of the Stolen Generation policies, the victims of 'linguicide' (language killing) are largely overlooked by the Australian Government. Existing grant schemes to support Aboriginal languages are inadequate, and they should be complemented with compensation schemes, which are based on a claim of right. The proposed compensation scheme for the loss of Aboriginal languages should support the effort to reclaim and revive the lost languages. We first outline the history of linguicide during colonisation in Australia. We then put a case for reviving lost Aboriginal languages by highlighting the benefits of language revival. After evaluating the limits of existing Australian law in supporting the language revival efforts, this paper proposes a statute-based ex gratia compensation scheme, which can be colloquially called 'Native Tongue Title'.

Background

Language is an archaeological vehicle, full of the remnants of dead and living pasts, lost and buried civilizations and technologies. The language we speak is a whole palimpsest of human effort and history. (Russell Hoban, children's writer, 1925-2011, in Haffenden 1985:138)

Linguicide (language killing) and glottophagy (language eating; see Zuckermann and Monaghan 2012) have made Australia an unlucky place. These twin forces have been in operation in Australia since the early colonial period, when efforts were made to prevent Aboriginal people from continuing to speak their languages in order to 'civilize' them. Anthony Forster, a nineteenth-century financier and politician, gave voice to a colonial linguicide ideology, which was typical of much of the attitude towards Australian languages (report on a public meeting of the South Australian Missionary Society in aid of the German Mission to the Aborigines, Southern Australian, 8 September 1843, p.2, in Scrimgeour 2007:116):

The natives would be sooner civilized if their language was extinct. The children taught would afterwards mix only with whites, where their own language would be of no use--the use of their language would preserve their prejudices and debasement, and their language was not sufficient to express the ideas of civilized life.

Even Governor of South Australia George Grey, who was relatively pro-Aboriginal, appeared to share this opinion and remarked in his journal that 'the ruder languages disappear successively, and the tongue of England alone is heard around' (Grey 1841:200-01). What was seen as a civilising process was actually the traumatic death of various fascinating and multifaceted Aboriginal languages.

It is not surprising, therefore, that of approximately 330 known Aboriginal languages, today only 13 (4 per cent) are spoken natively by children. Blatant statements of linguistic imperialism, such as the ones made by Forster and Grey, now seem to be less frequent, but the processes they describe are nonetheless still active.

Approximately 7000 languages are currently spoken worldwide. The majority of these are spoken by small populations. Approximately 96 per cent of the world's population speaks around 4 per cent of the world's languages, leaving the vast majority...