Animating Wangka: Haymish’s Take on Yankunytjatjara Picture Books
June 22, 2025
Over the past few months, Haymish Moosha—a young Kokatha man—has been working with the Mobile Language Team through a traineeship focused on language and new media. He’s been exploring how animation can be used to bring language resources to life and make them more accessible for young digital Aṉangu learners.
As part of his project, Haymish has taken three storybooks from the Yankunytjatjara Picture Book Series and turned them into short animated videos. The original books were developed in 2015 as part of a collaboration between the MLT, Mimili Maku Arts and the Mimili community. Now, ten years later, Haymish has added colour, movement, and sound to make them accessible for new audiences—particularly younger learners.
The three stories – Nyaa Kumpini, Kutjulingkuya Paltjini and Nganana ngananya ngurini? – are all in Yankunytjatjara and are designed to support early language learning in a fun and familiar way. The animated versions feature voices by Yankunytjatjara speaker and MLT Senior Aboriginal Language Expert Karina Lester, allowing learners to follow along with the text and hear the language spoken clearly.
For Haymish, the project has been a chance to build his skills in digital media while also learning more about language work. He has been involved in every part of the process—from editing artwork and building animation sequences to working with language audio and matching it to the stories. The project has also given him a way to engage with language in a hands-on and creative way.
Projects like this are part of MLT’s broader goal to support community members to develop language resources in ways that feel meaningful to them. For Haymish, it’s been a chance to contribute something practical that others can use, while also building up his own experience in the field.
The animations are available now and can be a great learning resources for schools, families, and communities.
If you’re interested in working on language projects for your own community—whether it’s animation, new media, language documentation, oral histories, or something else—MLT runs traineeships throughout the year.
Get in touch to find out how you can get involved.