LING 3015 - Reclaiming Languages: a Kaurna Case Study

This course will introduce students to the methods, approaches and strategies for reclaiming sleeping languages through the lens of the Kaurna language, the original language of Adelaide and the Adelaide Plains. Students will gain familiarity with the Kaurna sources and will investigate Kaurna in relation to neighbouring languages focussing on both linguistic and cultural ties. Students will gain an appreciation of Kaurna history and of the Kaurna language, both as it was spoken in the mid-nineteenth century and within its contemporary social context. Learning to speak, use and understand the Kaurna language is not the main purpose of this course. In this respect this Kaurna language course differs from most other language courses where developing 'communicative competence' is the main goal. Rather, this course focuses on developing understandings about the Kaurna language, the historical source materials, how we know what we know about the language, and how it is being used today. Students will learn of the importance that the Kaurna language has to Kaurna people as they rebuild their cultural and linguistic identity. Strenuous efforts will be made to 'get inside' the Kaurna language and use the language as a key to understanding Kaurna culture and a little of our history and the place in which we live.