Nagangbi (hello).

When visiting a country, most make the effort to learn a few words of their language and to understand aspects of their culture out of respect.

Aboriginal woman Dr Jodi Edwards has published a ground-breaking Dharawal language and activity book which she hopes will be used in schools throughout the Illawarra to foster this understanding in the next generation.

Jodi has pioneered programs for Aboriginal people in the Illawarra for years, establishing Gumaraa Aboriginal Cultural Education and the Illawarra Flame Trees Aboriginal Performing Arts Group.

In March this year she was named Shellharbour Local Woman of the Year and in August’s Local Government NAIDOC Awards, she received the Aboriginal Community Representative of the Year.

Since 1996 she has gathered Dharawal word lists and phrases with the “support of Dharawal and Yuin knowledge holders whose homelands are where the meetings, the yarns and the cups of tea took place” to record the language.

Language is a strong part of identity for people around the world, and a symbol of place. Making the Dharawal language more accessible to people will bring an appreciation of culture.

“More people today understand the significance of culture and the link between culture and language,” says Dr Edwards.

“You might ask a young child, ‘what is your culture?’ They would say, ‘I don’t know’. But on inquiring, they would tell you that they sing and dance at home and every September they make tomato sauce and pasta and the whole family comes over. They then understand that this is their culture, their ancestors did it in their homeland and they have never been persecuted for doing this.

“But for Aboriginal people, being able to hunt kangaroo, fish, make a possum skin cloak, all of this culture was stopped. The last documented ceremony occurred in Kiama in 1836. That’s not to say ceremonies haven’t happened since, but this was the last ceremony that occurred without any retribution.”

Australia has one of the worst records of language loss. An AIATSIS 2018-19 survey shows that there are more than 250 Indigenous languages in Australia, but only 123 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages are still in use and of those only about 12 are relatively strong and being taught to children.

“Dharawal is not lost,” says Jodi, “and this was the whole premise of my PhD (Weaving the past into the future: the continuity of Aboriginal cultural practices in the Dharawal and Yuin nations).

“Many non-Aboriginal people believe there is no culture inside the Dharawal footprint. But we still have the rock art that litters the escarpment, we still have our stories, our dances, we still practice coming together albeit in different form of ceremony, we still go out on country to camp, we have always fished.”

According to Professor Jakelin Troy, a Ngarigu woman and linguist at the University of Sydney, “Young Australians love … being Australian [and] engaging with who and what we, as the Indigenous people of Australia, are. They want to be part of it.”

Jodi says she is ready to hand over her work collecting Dharawal words and phrases to this new generation.

Nandawanjing (see ya later).

Dharawal: Words, Phrases and Activities is for sale through Woolworths Shellcove, Sutherland and Miranda or from UOW’s Woolyunga Indigenous Centre.