The first time I spoke in my own language I broke down and wept

As an Aboriginal person who grew up unable to speak my language I feel I have been denied a core part of my identity, and it is a deep wound.

The first time I said something in my language in public, “Ngaya Ngamitjimitong” – I belong to the Ngamitji clan – I broke down and wept in front of 400 people.

Speaking my language was a visceral experience that left me weeping for something I couldn’t articulate. A loss so deep it was breathtaking. I have seen many Aboriginal people have the same reaction as they begin the journey back to speaking in their own language.

Without our languages many Aboriginal people talk of being bereft, of wanting to speak language more than having food or housing.

Language loss is so core to our identity as peoples it has had a profound effect on our social and emotional wellbeing, affecting our health and our capacity to thrive economically, socially and educationally.

A growing body of research evidence in Australia and Canada in particular is demonstrating that communities that have continued to speak their languages or are involved in reviving our languages have greatly reduced rates of chronic disease, mental illnesses and suicide.

Most of the 250 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages of Australia have slowly “gone to sleep” since the British invasion in 1788. This is a direct result of government actions that denied us the right to speak and learn in our own languages. Indeed even in living memory many people were physically beaten for speaking their language.

It seems inconceivable now that anyone would deny Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people what is a fundamental right. The right to use and be educated in our own languages is enshrined in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. It is encouraging to see that commonwealth, state and territory governments and are working to redress their language destroying past practices.

We as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples do not see our languages as “dead” – they are just waiting for us to wake them up.

There is now a pan-Australian movement to revive our languages. My own language Ngarigu of the Snowy Mountains in southeastern NSW is the latest to join the revival movement.

It is encouraging to see growing government support for language programs. However, it is still the case that at best the commonwealth government gives tokenistic attention to our languages, and at worst they are completely ignored. This is to the detriment of our linguistic diversity and cultural competence.

The fact remains that none of our languages have official recognition. We lag way behind our neighbour New Zealand, where Maori has been an official language for decades and is protected by its own legislation, the Maori Language Act 1987.

New South Wales has been a leader now since the early 2000s in having a statewide approach to supporting the 70 or more Aboriginal languages of its communities.

Working for the Board of Studies NSW I began the process of writing what became the Aboriginal Languages Syllabus K-10 released in schools in 2005. This was the first schools syllabus in Australia to support the teaching of all the languages of a state or territory.

The latest development to embed Aboriginal languages as a new HSC subject in NSW from 2016 is another historic and brave move that communities and schools have been working towards for decades.

The commonwealth government is soon to announce a Framework for Aboriginal Languages and Torres Strait Islander Languages as part of the languages national curriculum. This is another important step that will encourage schools to develop local language curriculum to support the teaching of our languages in schools across the country.

I have been proud to a write for this framework with my colleagues Dr Michael Walsh and Dr Doug Marmion. However, it is shame that more Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have not been included as writers for the Australian curriculum.

Indeed our involvement overall has been light, and content that speaks to our perspectives, knowledges and histories has become a point of severe – and arguably racist – criticism.

The announcement that Aboriginal languages will now be part of the curriculum from the first years through to the HSC in NSW is a necessary first step towards reinvigorating and enshrining Australia’s Indigenous languages for future generations.

I look forward to a day when every Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander child is able to study their own language, study in their own language and – most of all – grow up speaking their language.

Professor Jakelin Troy is Director of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Research at the University of Sydney. This article was first published in The Guardian.