The Noongar musician had to take Tafe classes to learn the language of her people, but now she’s spreading its popularity – one song at a time

Singer-songwriter Gina Williams’ creative life hit a high point in 2014 when, along with musical partner, Guy Ghouse, she released their debut album Kalyakoorl – sung entirely in Noongar, the Indigenous language of south-western Australia.

No mean feat considering it was just five years ago that Williams, then 40, signed up for a Noongar language course. “In my first class I remember feeling a bit sick from embarrassment and shame; I’m a Noongar and I have to come to a Tafe course to learn my own language! I was the only Noongar in the class,” she says on the phone.

To commiserate, I share my own humiliating tale of sitting in a beginners Mandarin class, the only student with a Chinese heritage. This much we have in common. But unlike Mandarin, alive and kicking with over one billion speakers, there are just 250 native speakers of Noongar left on the planet – the devastating result of Australia’s historical policy of forced assimilation. More.

See: The Guardian

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