TONGUE TRANSFORMED: Dr Stan Grant, Bernard Sullivan and Cheyne Halloran launch the Wiradjuri Dictionary app. Picture: Olivia Shying
AN ABORIGINAL elder is using the latest technology to give an ancient language greater reach.
Dr Stan Grant, one of the last remaining fluent speakers of Wiradjuri language, has launched an app with Wiradjuri Centre’s Cheyne Halloran and CSUs Bernard Sullivan.
Decades ago Dr Grant had lost most of the language he had learned from his grandfather – a West Wyalong meeting changed his thought process and he and his brother wrote the language down. The new app – known as the Wiradjuri Dictionary – has more than 6000 words. Users can look up an English word and see it spelled in Wiradjuri, then listen to it, correctly pronounced by Dr Grant. “My family would be so honoured that this language is continuing,” he said.
