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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 12 Hansard (19 November) . . Page.. 3808 ..

MS McRAE (continuing):

It is that transition that people make when they come to Australia, speaking a language other than English. Here is a another wonderful quote from a Finnish person:

It is my Finnish language that is my skin, my air I breathe, my snowfall, my rage and my sorrow; it is in this language that I heal my deepest wounds, and it is here that I shape and root my deepest feelings. My Finnish language is the very source and ground of my own being.

It is this that we are talking about. It is indigenous people encountering another language. It is people from another language having to learn English when they come here. That is at the profound level of transition that people have to make. Even Shakespeare wrote about the transition to another language. He knew this feeling. The author wrote:

To take away our mother tongue from us is like skinning or flaying us alive.

Shakespeare, in Richard II, had Mowbray speak of it and he says this as he is sentenced to banishment from his country and his language:

The language I have learnt these forty years,

My native English, now I must forgo;

And now my tongue's use is to me no more

Than an unstringed viol or a harp;

Or like a cunning instrument cas'd up

Or, being open, put into his hands

That knows no touch to tune the harmony.

Within my mouth you have engaol'd my tongue,

Doubly portcullis'd with my teeth and lips;

And dull, unfeeling, barren ignorance

Is made my gaoler to attend on me.

I am too old to fawn upon a nurse,

Too far in years to be a pupil now.

What is thy sentence, then, but speechless death,

Which robs my tongue from breathing native breath?

This is the reality that we are talking about. When we talk about multicultural Australia we are talking about multilingual Australia. We are talking about extraordinary adjustments for individuals which we should praise. We should give medals, celebrate and marvel that they have been able to make this transition, to make this place their home; marvel that our indigenous people have had to take on English, to forgo their native tongue and to adapt and live in this strange country that Australia has developed to be.

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