‘Indigenous’ - our alternative word of the year in honour of local tongues

Little-heard lesser languages can be as ‘at risk’ as endangered species and should be conserved in a similar way

Lisa Lim

Published: 3:45pm, 31 Dec 2019

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Let’s look back at the year that was. For those into language matters, it was the International Year of Indigenous Languages. In January, for this and other reasons, this columnist argued that “indigenous” should be the word of the year (WOTY). It’s not. Recently announced 2019 WOTY winners include “climate emergency” (Oxford Dictionaries), “they” (Merriam Webster) and “cancel culture” (Macquarie) – reflecting current concerns over the environment, gender and politics.

Linguistic diversity is often considered alongside biodiversity. Here we may ponder the symbolism of the giant panda. The animal is a typical example of charismatic megafauna – a species that functions as an ambassador for a particular habitat or cause; a poster child for endangered animals and conservation, famously fronting the WWF logo. But attention bias in popular culture towards such prominent species often means that other at-risk animals and plants receive far less funding, even if they are more imperilled.

In the world of languages, minority languages do get engulfed by larger ones – smaller languages and communities often being less visible to public attention and financial support.

The word “panda” came from French, specifically Georges-Frédéric Cuvier’s 1825 natural history of mammals. This in turn most likely came from the second element of the hybrid Nepali and Tibetan term nigálya-pónya, from the Nepali nigālyā “cane-eating” plus a regional Tibetan second element representing an animal name pho-ña, “messenger, envoy”, with pōnya sometimes by itself meaning “eater of bamboo” – a nice example of indigenous-language names encompassing traditional ecological knowledge eventually entering major languages.

Indeed, the Oxford English and Macquarie dictionaries have expanded their scope to include words from New Englishes and indigenous languages, affording recognition and legitimacy. Runners-up for Macquarie’s WOTY include “ngangkari” from the Pitjantjatjara people, of the central Australian desert, meaning an indigenous practitioner of bush medicine, and “thicc” from African-American English, which celebrates body positivity nonconformant with conventional white standards of beauty.

A word, a day, a year – all small but potentially significant steps for conserving endangered animals and supporting indigenous languages and communities. The United Nations just this month declared an International Decade of Indigenous Languages, to begin in 2022.

The giant panda moved from “endangered” to “vulnerable” status in 2016, after a 17 per cent wild population increase over the previous decade. Comparable attention to and support for indigenous languages and communities will hopefully also afford them strengthened vitality, however mega or minor the varieties may be.

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