New locally-created app teaches Alice Springs’ first language, Arrernte
A NEW language app has been produced to promote Arrernte language and knowledge in Mparntwe, Alice Springs.
Alice Springs
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A NEW language app has been produced to promote Arrernte language and knowledge in Mparntwe, Alice Springs.
Awemele Itelaretyeke – Listen and Understand houses all of the audio recording from the Apmere angkentye-kenhe project, which values Central/Eastern Arrernte as the first language.
Now the app gives people another way to access the sound of Central/Eastern Arrernte language alongside the written words, and to see through the eyes of a group of Mparntwe’s custodians with walking tours.
Creators of the app said the language work was “for the kids first, and for all Arrernte people, so they can be proud of who they are, and then secondly, for non-Aboriginal people so they can learn and understand more about being here on our country – Apmere Mparntwe and the neighbouring areas”.
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The app includes the ‘fifty words everyone living in Mparntwe should know’ words and phrases and two audio tours, including a new one ‘Akertne-ntyele awetyeke’.
Project co-ordinator and artist Beth Sometimes said the app was a “legacy” to the work the group had done over the past four years.
“What we created over the course of the project was a series of posters with accompanying audio,” she said.
“We’ve also produced two audio walking tours.”
Ms Sometimes said the app was for anybody to engage with, from non-Arrernte locals and for Arrernte people wanting to re-engage with language.
“There are lots of Arrernte people who speak language and there are lots of Arrernte people who don’t as they haven’t grown up speaking Arrernte, so there are a lot of people keen to have resources to re-engage with Arrernte,” she said.
“There’s a long history in Alice Springs of people finding Arrernte hard to read because it has a lot of sounds we don’t have in English.”
The app was created through Akeyluerre Healing Centre with financial support from centrecorp.
To download for Android or iOS, search for ‘Awemele itelaretyeke’ in the app store or google play store.
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