Sarah Sandy interviews LeLarnie Hatfield at Youth PD

LeLarnie Hatfield

During the first week of our Youth Professional Development workshops this year, held in Cairns/Yidinji Country, our Youth PD intern Sarah Sandy interviewed LeLarnie Hatfield, one of the language workers who joined us for the workshop.

Tell us a bit about yourself and the language work you are a part of.

I am a Language and Cultural Officer at Darumbal Enterprises. I look after all types of language and culture that happens on Darumbal country. I also work within the schools teaching Darumbal language and culture. I also do out-of-school programs with non-Indigenous and Indigenous people. I’m a bit all over the place – in a good way!

What got you into language work?

It’s just language and culture has been a big part of my upbringing, so therefore it was my duty or obligation to continue on this work. My grandmother, she is the language keeper of our people, so the responsibility of continuing language and keeping it alive has been passed down onto her grandchildren. I’m just following her footsteps.

How are you finding the workshop so far and do you have a highlight?

I’m loving the workshop so far. I’ve enjoyed being able to meet new people and just see where everyone is at in their language journey. Meeting Amy and Nathan and Ebony and all of our other facilitators has been great because they leave something with you. They may talk a lot and fill - in a good way! - fill us with heaps of information, but there’s always something you can grasp from each session, and I think that’s been a highlight, being able to take something away from each session.

What are your hopes and aspirations for your language?

My hopes and aspirations for my language are for it to continue for generations to come after I am no longer on this earth. Hopefully, in the next couple of years, we’ll have more fluent speakers back on my home country and in my clan. Yeah, just the continuation of language and culture.

What is one word you love in your language, or one thing that you love about your language and why?

I’ve been trying to think of my favourite word! I’ll say when I was a kid, my favourite word was dyugi dyugi, and dyugi dyugi, it means chicken. You know, like when you used to feed the chickens, like “Here, dyugi dyugi dyugi”. So dyugi dyugi – chicken. But I think my favourite thing about language is the power it has within itself. You may be in a room of a hundred people and then they may be all chatting, but once maybe a Welcome to Country starts, everyone’s just quiet, and they’re held onto the words that are being spoken, even though they don’t understand them, they’re just so engaged. It’s engaging and powerful, I think that’s my favourite thing about language.

(Thanks Sarah and LeLarnie!)