Aboriginal languages are being lost at an alarming rate, according to academics, and with them unique cultural and traditional medicinal knowledge. Melbourne University professor Steven Bird is concerned with the growing number of endangered languages in the Northern Territory. He recognizes the importance of collecting and recording whatever is left in the way of medicinal knowledge encoded in these languages; preserving such information could lead to the future development of new medicines. There are about 80 languages with five or less speakers in Australia, in urgent need of preservation and documentation strategies.
