A bicultural future for Leonora Aboriginal languages

Sue Hanson is a linguist, and for the last four years she's been working with a small group of women from Leonora, two hours drive north of Kalgoorlie in the West Australian Goldfields. They are some of the last remaining speakers of Kuwarra, the language of the people from around the Lake Darlot region, north east of Leonora.

The ladies love nothing more than getting the family together and heading out into the bush.

"If we got no money or it's really raining - but if we have a chance of having money for the fuel, then we go hunting - that's the only two things that will stop us," says Geraldine.

It's in this bush setting that a lot of the language and stories can naturally emerge.

Preserving a language takes years of commitment and work, and Sue has been empowering the Kuwarra ladies with the skills and confidence to operate as bicultural people in the changed social landscape of modern Australia.

Mother and daughter, Luxie and Geraldine Hogarth say that maintaining their language is important because it's central to who they are as human beings.

Produced by Nathan Morris

This video was originally contributed to the ABC Open Mother Tongue project, which invited Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities to share a story about their mother tongue.