YAWAYI MARRUNGGA NGABU BINGAYI
WELCOME SISTERS AND BROTHERS
The Ngabu Bingayi Aboriginal Corporation is a group of Dhanggati Elders and younger people dedicated to the wellbeing of Dhanggati people in the Macleay Valley of New South Wales. Ngabu means elder sister and Bingayi means elder brother thus: Sisters and Brothers.
Our objectives are:
a) revive language and culture
b) promote emotional and social wellbeing
c) provide educational and employment opportunities for our children and young people
d) provide economic independence for our community
e) provide nutritional food for our children and elders
f) educate ourselves on the benefits of healthy eating and the importance of traditional foods and to learn skills to do this.
Dhanggati people are the traditional owners of the Macleay Valley and our language was spoken ‘right through’ until the late 1960s and early 1970s. We believe that the revival of language and culture is essential to the emotional and social wellbeing of our people as individuals and as a community.
Dhanggati Language Group
The Dhanggati Language Group is under the umbrella of Ngabu Bingayi AC and has been actively working towards reviving language and culture since its formal formation in 2007. Previous to that time, our Elders have already been teaching language and culture in schools and in the community.
In 2007 the Dhanggati Language Group became the copyright holders of the Dhanggati grammar and dictionary with Dhanggati stories compiled by linguist Amanda Lissarrague. This forms the basis for our language revival by compiling all known information about the language and standardising that knowledge into a writing system and grammatical description of word and sentence formation.
From this work, various learning and teaching resources have been developed. This includes Guuyata Dhanggati, a set of ten units of work