Our Indigenous languages connect us to our homelands/seas, our histories and ways, within which they carry deep-rooted meanings and understandings. The peoples of the Southwest Pacific speak an extraordinary proportion of the world’s languages, with the highest linguistic diversity per country in Papua New Guinea and per capita in Vanuatu. However, this unique richness of culture and ways is now highly threatened, as I have experienced in struggling to learn my Indigenous language, Ngolan Lou.

Concerned about not learning Ngolan Lou as a child, I have spent significant time in my village since completing high school, hoping to immerse myself in the language, only to realise the urgent extent of its decline and devaluation. Aiming to address this situation, I created a short film for my community, 'Holim Pas Tok Ples' (2019), which highlights the immense value of Indigenous language and includes interviews with mentors in the Southwest Pacific and from Cowichan First Nation in Canada ([1], [2]). We have screened the film and facilitated discussions on Lou, but this remains insufficient – more needs to be done to build on this initial intervention and counter the increasing pressures of globalisation and monolingualism, and engage people in revaluing our language identities, knowledge and ways.

I aim to open a space where participants can discuss the importance of our languages – as connectors between peoples and place – and can share ideas and strategies for turning around Indigenous language decline (particularly in contexts like PNG where funding for such is scarce) and for moving towards restoring the active use of our languages. I hope to attend the conference with another Lou Islander, so we can share about efforts in our community and facilitate conversation amongst the other participants (between six and 30).

(1) https://youtu.be/2QKIfPiQC8c?si=a2x8hXLAHHlSW0qw
(2) The story of the film: https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/cp.2020.0040