Tapping Into Culture: The Mobile Game Reviving Nyiyaparli Language

By Esther Colman

Doom scrolling, binge watching and brain rot gets to us all these days, especially the younger generations. It’s hard to find meaning in watching yet another below average Netflix series or swiping through an endless stream of content that leaves you feeling more empty than entertained. 

But what if spending your precious time playing a game was actually making a difference… Think Duolingo (without the scary angry bird) meets Angry Birds and Extreme Fishing, and you get Nyiyaparli Widi; a game that aims to revitalise a language from the brink of extinction.    

The Nyiyaparli language stretches back over 41,000 years, yet only eight fluent speakers of the language remain. The language was quickly vanishing in front of our eyes, like many others, with the number of senior language speakers dropping from eleven to eight over just eighteen months. 

To prevent the language from disappearing completely, they took the initiative to harness technology for cultural preservation and created Nyiyaparli Widi, a game for the next generation to learn from. 

Nyiyaparli Widi is available on app stores now

Simon, the Executive Producer of the Nyiyaparli Living Language Project, told Ngaarda Media’s Esther Colman

“The goal of the Nyiyaparli Living Language Project is to keep the language alive forever. It's a community-led grassroots language program. So it's been designed by the community.”

While most games are built to distract, this one is designed to connect. Instead of consuming yet another hour of brain rot, kids are using their screens to explore Country, hear the voices of their Elders, and pick up words that have travelled through 41,000 years of culture. 

It flips the idea of screen time on its head as every minute spent playing is another step toward keeping a language alive. 

Nyiyaparli Widi (“widi” meaning game in Nyiyaparli) is set across real Pilbara landscapes from the 14-Mile stockyards and Fortescue Marsh to Ethel Creek Station and Newman. 

Players travel through Country completing cultural missions and collecting “Paathupaathu Points,” or respect points.

Every object collected unlocks a Nyiyaparli word, building a digital dictionary as players go. Instead of just tapping at a screen, kids are learning the sounds, stories, and meanings of their ancestors’ language.

Leonard Michael Stream, a member of the Nyiyaparli Living Language Project Cultural Working Group said 

“We keep telling kids to get off their phones – but here’s a story where staying on the phone might just help save a language and the cultural knowledge it unlocks”  

Nyiyapali Widi is available on both the Apple App Store and Google Play, plus you can learn more about the Nyiyaparli Living Language Project by visiting https://nyiyaparli.live/