ABSTRACT Although not widely publicized or studied, Australian parliaments are increasingly breaking new ground in enacting statutory text in Indigenous languages. There are important public discussions to be had about the symbolic significance of this process and the practical benefits it may reap for language preservation. This article looks at a more technical, but no less important, issue: how Indigenous language statutory text is to be interpreted by English-speaking courts. This issue demands urgent resolution so that interpretative anxieties do not deter continued progress in this field. The potential resolution suggested by this article is that Indigenous language statutory text be interpreted using the same principles applied to non-English treaties. A worked example illustrates how this interpretative approach might work in practice.

中文翻译：

---

扩大法律词汇——土著语言立法和多语言条约解释

摘要虽然没有被广泛宣传或研究，但澳大利亚议会在以土著语言制定法定文本方面正越来越多地开辟新天地。关于这一过程的象征意义以及它可能为语言保存带来的实际好处，需要进行重要的公开讨论。本文着眼于一个更具技术性但同样重要的问题：英语法院如何解释土著语言法定文本。这个问题需要紧急解决，以便解释性焦虑不会阻止该领域的持续发展。本文建议的潜在解决方案是使用适用于非英语条约的相同原则解释土著语言法定文本。一个工作示例说明了这种解释方法如何在实践中发挥作用。