Ebony speaks on ABC Radio
“It’s a reconnection to the vibration of our country, the universe, and everything in between.”
This November, we were so stoked to hear Ebony (one of our trainers) on the airwaves talking about her love for her language, Yorta Yorta, and her experiences with learning, teaching and language revitalisation over the years.
Ebony Joachim
Reproduced by permission of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation – Library Sales © 2020 ABC
Ebony spoke to David Astle on Evenings, ABC Radio Melbourne, about the work we do at Living Languages; how she first got into language teaching and language work; what it felt like to learn Yorta Yorta for the first time in her mid-twenties; and the importance of language for healing and connection to country.
Reflecting on when she first started learning Yorta Yorta, Ebony said: “It was a real eye opener for me in terms of language, and how Yorta Yorta people use language to see the world around us, but it was also just a great learning curve for me because, [growing up], I [spent] a lot of time with elders...learning a lot about our worldviews, and [a lot] about our culture, and then coming into language was pretty much the icing on the cake for me. I’m still pretty young so I‘ve still got a lot to learn, [and that] just opened up a whole new world for me, and I haven’t looked back. I’ve always kind of stayed in language work since then.”
On her experience teaching children, Ebony said “I put it down to my curiosity - I just found this...kind of natural fascination with the language, it just become my passion, so learning and teaching at the same time was really great for me because it kind of cemented the language for myself. Even though I was a couple of steps in front of my students, I was still very much a student myself, but yeah, it just kept that...curiosity going for [me].”
“There was one student actually, he wasn’t Yorta Yorta, but he come from a language group in Queensland, and he was very, very strong in his identity, and at the time he was only around Grade 4, so you know...eight years old, and yeah, he was just very strong in his knowledge as well, in what he’d learnt from his grandfather, and some of the stories he’d tell me about his language or his people, you know...kind of sparked this... little lightglobe moment for me. It was just like, ‘wow’, you know, not many kids at that age are that strong...in their identity, and it was just an amazing thing to see. I’ve always been strong in my own, but you know...coming from a kid, it was just amazing to see.”
On language revitalisation’s importance for healing and strengthening connection to land, Ebony said: “Well, you know, I’ve worked with a lot of language groups that are in this process of revitalising their languages - and I see language personally [as] a great healing process - but in saying that, it’s a reconnection to our spirituality, it’s a reconnection to the vibration of our country, universe, and everything in between, the physical and the non-physical, so, you know, reconnecting to all of those different things is that healing of us as individuals, to the land, the water, the animals, the stars, and everything. [The words] do [carry a lot of weight and history], and not many people realise that until you get into the space and start working in it.”
Go Eb!