By: Jason Huang

The continent of Australia is home to more than 250 languages and 800 dialects that are all spoken by Indigenous people. Yet one of its most ancient languages wasn’t spoken by people, but instead craved.

The language was based on message sticks which were flat, rounded, and oblong pieces of wood where ornate images were carved on both sides. They conveyed important messages and they held the stories of Australia’s Aboriginal people. They were considered the world’s oldest continuous living culture. The message sticks are believed to be thousands of years old and had been carried by messengers who traveled long distances usually to deliver news or to reinforce oral histories.

The motifs that were imprinted on each of them could signify news of war, death, peace, marriage and more. Now, the surviving message sticks are encased in glass displays in museums like The Australian Museum in Sydney, but their information still remains undecipherable by people today. According to linguistic anthropologist, Piers Kelly, “Little in the way of significant new research on message sticks was published in the 20th Century.”

To decode the inscriptions, it will be necessary to have the help of Indigenous elders, who can understand depictions that could be particular to a specific group, location or idea.

Overall, message sticks are part of a language that was ancient and carved, not written or spoken, and they signify a lot of things, but people today cannot decode the inscriptions.