Kado Muir – a Ngalia man – will never be able to have another conversation in his mother tongue. He tells the story of witnessing each of his elders dying and, in the process, his language. Successively, he had fewer and fewer people to communicate with. In the case of his language community, younger contemporaries shifted to English as the language exerted its colonial power – until at last Kado Muir became the last speaker of Ngalia.

Kado Muir’s story is not unique. He is not the only one to experience such a devastating loss, nor will he be the last. Of the approximately five hundred Indigenous languages of Australia, only thirteen continue to be passed down to the next generation. Even these are at risk. Each lost language had a last speaker, one who endured the same pain.

Language, however, is not lost in isolation. The relentless forces of colonisation have severed and continue to sever the connection to generations of accumulated knowledge, stories, and traditions. Ultimately, language documentation is no panacea. It can’t restore everything that’s gone, but it serves as a resilient counter-measure in modern Australia, helping to shape the future vitality of Indigenous Australian languages.