Your language is dead. Learn something else. That was the blunt message Patricia O'Connor and Ysola Best were said to have received when they tried to revive their people's native tongue.
Growing up in Southport and Beaudesert, the two south-east Queensland Indigenous women spoke Yugambeh, a language that once stretched from the Logan River to the Tweed and out to the Scenic Rim.
But when they approached the University of Queensland in the mid-1980s to try to bring the language back, they were told it had already been dead for three decades, according to Ms O'Connor's son, Rory.
They were urged to learn another language but instead set off on a path that saw them get degrees, help develop Queensland's first working research facility to bring back lost languages and eventually see their language spoken in Federal Parliament.
“The message came back to us through the University of Queensland Anthropology Museum,” Ms O'Connor said, in a booklet published by the Yugambeh Museum.
“Basically they thought we were wasting our time. Forget it. Your language is dead. Study another language. Perhaps Bundjalung from the south.”
Mr O'Connor said his mum, who was not available to speak to Brisbane Times, and her late sister had a "mammoth task" to bring Yugambeh back.
"My mum was only in school since grade 10," he said.
"It was really told [to them] by non-Indigenous that it doesn't exist anymore but my mother knew elders were still using it on a daily basis."
His mother grew up with creation stories, talked about language and "knew full well the language needed to be recognised to honour her elders".
Mr O'Connor said Indigenous languages made people connect words with stories.
"A story that I quite liked was the story of her grandmother planting nuts as she walked through the Gold Coast forest back in the 1860s, planting macadamia nuts for the next generation," he said.
“Today we can still see old stands of macadamia trees. And what is even more amazing is that macadamia nuts as a species actually first originated in this area.
"That’s an incredible story that brings Aboriginal culture to light."
The Yugambeh Museum chief executive said the language was mainly shared orally but early written records matched the memories of elders interviewed by his family.
Through the family's hard work and dedication, Yugambeh has since been recognised in more than 200 schools and community and early learning centres.
The Yugambeh Museum was a Queensland first when it became a working research facility to bring languages back from lost.
The first language on the list was, naturally, Yugambeh - spoken traditionally in the regions now defined by the Tweed and Logan rivers, extending west to Beaudesert.
The Museum has grown to be one of the largest of Australia’s 22 language centres.
Mr O'Connor said he hoped Yugambeh could become "mainstream" one day and be used as part of everyday life.
"I feel gratified because my mother and Ysola were told by ministers that they weren't going to back language because people would oppose," he said.
"It went from that attitude to the prime minister speaking our language in Parliament and things like the apology, Bringing Them Home report and the support from the greater Australian public.
"I hope in the next 10 years, kids will want to know their stories and aboriginal kids that was something alien to me when growing up."