The United Nations Vision

In 2019, the United Nations declared the International Year of Indigenous Languages (IYIL 2019), a campaign aimed at raising awareness about the critical state of Indigenous languages worldwide. Despite its powerful message, the year came and went with limited long-term impact. Recognising the ongoing threat to thousands of Indigenous languages, and the opportunity for more meaningful action, the United Nations General Assembly declared the years 2022 to 2032 the International Decade of Indigenous Languages (IDIL).

The urgency behind this initiative is sobering. According to UNESCO, over 7,000 languages are spoken globally, but nearly 40% of them are endangered, with the vast majority being Indigenous. With each language lost, we lose a unique worldview, a deep well of knowledge, memory, and culture built over generations. Language is not simply a means of communication; it is identity, sovereignty, spiritual connection, ecological knowledge, and cultural inheritance.

As UNESCO explains, “Through language, people preserve their community’s history, customs and traditions, memory, unique modes of thinking, meaning and expression. They also use it to construct their future. Language is pivotal in the areas of human rights protection, good governance, peacebuilding, reconciliation, and sustainable development.

This decade is about shifting from language loss to language empowerment. The IDIL aims to preserve, revitalise, and promote Indigenous languages by recognising the right of Indigenous peoples to speak, teach, and transmit their languages freely, without discrimination. Governments, institutions, media, education systems, and the tech sector are all called upon to support Indigenous-led solutions that restore language use across homes, schools, communities, and digital platforms.

UNESCO’s Global Action Plan for the Decade outlines a vision of a world where Indigenous languages are thriving and contributing to justice, peace, reconciliation, and sustainable development. It states: “People’s ability and freedom to use their chosen language is essential for human dignity, peaceful co-existence, reciprocal action, and for the general wellbeing and sustainable development of society at large. It is through languages that people embed their worldviews, memory and traditional knowledge… whilst, even more significantly, it is through language too that they construct their future”.

Australia’s Opportunity

In Australia, this global initiative is particularly relevant. When Europeans arrived in 1788, there were between 300 to 700 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages. Today, only about 120 of those remain spoken, and only 13 are being learned by children.

Commissioner Tom Calma captured this crisis in his 2009 Social Justice Report: “The loss of Indigenous languages in Australia is a loss for all Australians. Cultural knowledge is carried through languages, so the loss of language means the loss of culture. Significant research shows that strong culture and identity assist us in developing resilience. Without intervention, it is estimated that Indigenous language usage will cease in the next 10 to 30 years”.

Indigenous languages in Australia are the vessels through which knowledge, lore, memory, and tradition are passed down. Their survival is a testament to the resilience of the world’s oldest continuing cultures, despite generations of colonial policies aimed at erasure. These languages were never written, but have survived orally for tens of thousands of years. They are repositories of wisdom and unique systems of knowledge, carrying with them not only cultural identity but also health, cognitive development, and resilience for future generations.

As the UN declared in 2019: “Language plays a crucial role in the daily lives of people, not only as a tool for communication, education, social integration and development but also as a repository for each person’s unique identity, cultural history, traditions and memory. But despite their immense value, languages around the world continue to disappear at an alarming rate”.

Australia’s Response

Responding to the UN’s declaration of the decade, the Australian Government in 2022 established a Directions Group to lead national engagement with IDIL. In August 2023, they released Voices of Country – Australia’s Action Plan for the International Decade of Indigenous Languages 2022–2032.

Built around five key themes, Stop the Loss, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Communities are Centre, Intergenerational Knowledge Transfer, Caring for Country, and Truth-telling and Celebration, the plan showcases both the urgency of the task and the hope offered through community-led language revival. As stated by the Federal Government at the plan’s release,  “Language is a fundamental human right. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages are the First Languages of Australia. They are the very essence of our identity, well-being, and knowledge. They are our connection to Country, Cultures and Kinships. Australia has one of the highest rates of language loss in the world. Immediate action is required to reverse this loss to allow our languages and our voice to once again thrive and survive”.

The Australian Communities

This national effort is not the job of the government alone. Across the continent, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, language centres, elders, and organisations, such as First Languages Australia, the Indigenous Literacy Foundation, ANTAR, AIATSIS and many more, are leading the work to document, teach, and grow their languages in ways that respect tradition and meet modern needs.

Language is the voice of Country. The voice of Elders. The voice of generations yet to come. The International Decade of Indigenous Languages offers a rare and powerful opportunity: to stop the silence and grow the sound of culture, wisdom, and survival. As the UNESCO Global Action Plan makes clear:
“When people’s freedom to use their language is not guaranteed, this limits their freedom of thought, as well as their access to education, health and information, justice, decent employment, and their participation in cultural life. The protection of traditional knowledge systems is built into the fabric of Indigenous languages”.

As we move through the decade, every Australian has a role in honouring, amplifying, and supporting the languages that shaped this land long before English was spoken here. These languages are not relics of the past. They are blueprints for a better, more just, and more inclusive future. They are part of A future visioned in the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

Their survival is not just an Indigenous issue; it is a national responsibility and a gift to the world.