Dad Writes Bedtime Story in Dying Indigenous Language for Sons

Mateo's favourite bedtime story is a precious gift.

It wasn't found in the library, or bought from a book store.

Instead, the book was written by Mateo's dad, Braithen Knox, in Gudjal language, known by fewer than 10 fluent speakers.

The 24-year-old said he wrote Where is the Dark Emu? in the language of their mob, the Gudjala people, after embarking on the journey of learning the dying Indigenous dialect.

"That downward trend I saw, I didn't want to be a part of that," Mr Knox said.

The Townsville resident said his grandparents were part of the Stolen Generations and were told not to practise their language.

"There's a lot of old people alive now that don't want to teach it, or the trauma affects their ability to pass it on," he said.

"So we're left with my mum and dad's generation who had words here and there but struggled to practise it, even as adults."

Now a father to two boys, Mr Knox wrote the children's book, which he doesn't intend on publishing, for his family to help his boys learn from a young age.

The book takes the reader on a search for the Dark Emu while encountering other emus like the Happy Emu, Angry Emu and Big Emu.

"The gundulu [Emu] is actually one of Charters Towers's totems as well, so I thought it was good to tie into the book," he said.

Gudjal country expands across the Charters Towers region and borders the Broughton River, White Mountains National Park near Pentland and the Clarke/Burdekin Rivers junction.

Uncovering centuries of lost language

Mr Knox said the book could not be written without the help of Uncle William Santo's Gudjal language guide.

Mr Santo said he was proud to hear about Mr Knox's book, and that his guide was being used to teach Gudjal to the boys.

Mr Santo said there was still work to be done in uncovering Gudjal language.

"A lot of the language is still lost, or it still needs to be found, and this may be the first edition," he said.

Australia has one of the highest rates of language loss in the world.

There were more than 250 indigenous languages in Australia before colonisation, but in 2021 the Australian Bureau of Statistics recorded just over 150 were still spoken.

Mr Santo spent more than three years putting it together with the assistance of linguists Alex Anderson and Cassy Nancarrow and University of Sydney associate professor Myfanny Turpin.

He said there were only six speakers of the language, whom he recorded to do the translations.

"It was painstaking hard work," he said.

Mr Santo hopes to see these numbers improve in the years to come.

"I'm hoping I can see that in my lifetime.

"I'm hoping young people will create a second edition."

Mr Knox said he looked forward to writing more stories for his sons in Gudjal.

"We want our kids and their kids to grow up with it, and it just becomes a natural thing, and it's not dying — it's growing and it's living."