Algy Paterson was the last fluent speaker of the Martuthunira language

Martuthunira language

-Phonology:Martuthunira has a fairly standard Australian phonology. R.M.W. Dixon uses it as a prototypical example in his 2002 book Australian Languages: Their nature and development.-Consonants:The laminal stop has a voiced allophone between vowels....

 of Western Australia

Western Australia

Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...

.

Algy's father was a European, which made him eligible to be removed from his family by the authorities under the policy now known as the Stolen Generation

Stolen Generation

The Stolen Generations were the children of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent who were removed from their families by the Australian Federal and State government agencies and church missions, under acts of their respective parliaments...

. His family avoided this by hiding in the bush

The Bush

"The bush" is a term used for rural, undeveloped land or country areas in certain countries.-Australia:The term is iconic in Australia. In reference to the landscape, "bush" describes a wooded area, intermediate between a shrubland and a forest, generally of dry and nitrogen-poor soil, mostly...

, where they lived a traditional nomad

Nomad

Nomadic people , commonly known as itinerants in modern-day contexts, are communities of people who move from one place to another, rather than settling permanently in one location. There are an estimated 30-40 million nomads in the world. Many cultures have traditionally been nomadic, but...

ic lifestyle. Algy grew up speaking Martuthunira and Kurrama

Kurrama language

Kurrama is an Australian Aboriginal language. It is one of the Ngayarda languages of the large Southwest branch of the Pama–Nyungan family.The language name has also previously been written as: Kurama, Gurrama, Gurama...

, and did not learn any English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 until he was fifteen.

From 1980 he worked with the linguist

Linguistics

Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....

 Alan Dench to preserve the Martuthunira language in writing.