Language App
© ABC NewsThe application will be launched in May.
Researchers are developing a mobile phone application in an effort to help save an ancient Aboriginal language that is close to being lost forever.

The language of Iwaidja is thousands of years old but on Croker Island in the Top End only about 150 people still speak it.

Iwaidja is one of about 50 known Aboriginal languages of Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory.

Bruce Birch from the Minjilang Endangered Languages Project has been working with locals to try to save it.

"It is one of Australia's hundred or so highly endangered languages," he said.

Using $100,000 of federal funding, a mobile phone application is being developed.

It will have 1,000 dictionary entries and almost 500 phrases.

"You will be be able to look up the word and touch the word and hear it," Mr Birch said.

The application will be launched in May.

Mr Birch hopes it will keep the language alive for future generations and help visitors to the region better understand the local culture.

"The idea for the mobile phone app sprang from the need to use up-to-date technology to attract people," he said.

He says it will help younger Indigenous people as well as non-Indigenous people who come into contact with Iwaidja speakers