At a unique Sydney bookshop, multilingual storytellers are keeping languages alive | Australia - SBS News

More than 180 languages are spoken in the Sydney suburb of Fairfield, with creative storytellers at one of its bookshops ensuring many are passed down to the next generation by Sandra Fulloon, SBS News.

Families enjoy multilingual story time at Lost in Books.
Photo: SBS

Jasmine Baker loves to tell stories, but it wasn’t always that way. 

“I speak Arabic and English. I come from a background where my parents speak five languages,” she tells SBS.

The 29-year-old is studying early childhood education and works part-time performing stories to children in more than one language.

The daughter of Lebanese parents who migrated to Australia in 1970, Jasmine was born in Sydney’s south-west and attended a local high school. But fitting in was a challenge...

Fairfield has resettled more than 12,000 refugees in recent years, including a large proportion from Iraq and Syria as part of the Australian government’s additional settlement program in 2016.

Jane Stratton started Lost in Books to keep Sydney's languages alive.
Photo: SBS

Lost in Books founder Jane Stratton aims to help new arrivals settle in Australia and help families retain a connection to their cultures through the multilingual books.
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Source: SBS News