You won’t find ‘terraglossia’ on Google, or in a dictionary. It’s a word coined by acclaimed academic and award-winning author Dr Debra Dank in response to the first Europeans’ description of Australia as ‘terra nullius’, no one’s land. These new arrivals, with their language born far away, silenced and made invisible the more-than-ancient civilisations that have lived in and with this place for many thousands of years. The First Peoples became ‘other’, spoken for and about in another language, through another culture, not permitted to articulate their essential being and their complex relationships with Country and its entities, unable to participate in the development of a truly Australian dialogue. It is time for the depth of this linguistic colonisation to be recognised, for the deep intellectual traditions of First Nations Australians to be acknowledged and included, for their multiple living communicative practices and expressions to be heard. Terraglossia is a powerful and moving reply to a false claiming, to the need for understanding that only through responsible living with the earth, not just what can be articulated in a language that arrived 250 years ago, will all the voices of Australia truly be heard.
