A living archive has been launched in Darwin, to breathe life into Indigenous languages recorded decades ago.

The Charles Darwin University archive is part of a project to preserve thousands of stories in more than 25 Indigenous languages.

The ever-expanding repository forms a resource for Indigenous communities, students, academics and the public to use and contribute to.

CDU Professor of Education and project leader Michael Christie says the Living Archive of Aboriginal Languages project will build a digital archive of endangered literature in collaboration with the language-owning communities.

“We are now launching Stage 1 of the project, which is an archive of more than 800 books, with more to follow,” Professor Christie said.

“People can visit the website and click on a community or language to see stories. Some also have recordings of a community elder reading their stories.”

The project began in 2012 when a team of language specialists travelled throughout the Northern Territory in search of stories.

“Thousands of books and other school materials were produced in Australian Indigenous languages by Aboriginal people, in collaboration with staff in school bilingual education programs across the NT,” Christie said.

“The stories are valuable tools chronicling Indigenous cultural heritage, and range from environmental knowledge to traditional practices, oral literature, ethno-botany and history.”

He says the researchers want even more community involvement in the next phase.

“Stage two of the project will allow us to preserve books and other materials including many items from language communities, which never had bilingual programs but still produced written stories in Indigenous languages by Indigenous authors. We’ll also be able to focus on re-engaging people in communities with these stories, in classrooms and research organisations all over Australia and the world.”

More information is accessible here.