Other aspects of communication

Traditional concepts – along with whitefella assumptions – befuddle successful communication. Some relate to a difference in the way time and quantities are processed and classified as opposed to the western way of dealing with them. 

Gestures are sometimes used in place of words, and there are some things Aboriginals are traditionally not permitted to speak about.

In a court room, where questioning might go on forever to clarify a single point, someone might use a word which several meanings. The western desert language Ngaanyatjarra, like many others, has had to develop new words to describe new, western concepts. The word town, which has become tawunpa, might mean settlement, city, town or house.

Aboriginals might use words like hit or kill interchangeably.

It’s not hard to see how, in the remote past, on the rare occasions Aboriginals were given a chance to seek justice, justice was not always done. What many whitefellas are simply unaware of is that, even today, there are many Aboriginals for whom whitefella language is still as incomprehensible as the law.