Our language is like a pearl inside a shell. The shell is like the people that carry the language. If our language is taken away, then that would be like a pearl that is gone. We would be like an empty oyster shell.’

These are the words of Yurranydjil Dhurrkay, a member of the Galiwin’ku community of East Arnhem Land, quoted in a Parliamentary reference paper on the preservation of indigenous language and they raise a difficult issue for our friends at the ABC.