Aboriginal people are in a race against time to save what's left of their mother tongues. Before the arrival of the Europeans there were more than 250 languages spoken in Australia. Now only half of them are left and all are critically endangered. Daryn McKenny has spent the last decade reviving the Awabakal language of Newcastle and its no easy task. To just find the word for sister they had to reverse translate a 19th century bible written in the Newcastle language. But at the State Library of NSW indigenous curator Ronald Briggs has something that might help not just Daryn but all those trying to revive Aboriginal languages. They are called the indigenous language lists, and they contain thousands of words from Aboriginal languages right around the country. Best of all there are boxes and boxes of them just waiting to be digitised and made available online. They were compiled back in the 1880s and 90s by magistrates and police officers who were charged by the Anthropological Society of Australia to gather the meanings of Aboriginal place names. Fortunately for people like Daryn McKenny they picked up many other words and wrote them down on the lists too. We join Daryn and other Awabakal speakers as they get a sneak preview of the lists and discover more long lost words. We also share their delight as they use these words to bring more of their language back to life.