An extinct Aboriginal language has been brought back from the dead, thanks to a handful of dedicated people in Adelaide.

Twenty years ago, not one person spoke the native Kaurna language of the Adelaide Plains, with the last known fluent speaker dying in the late 1900s.

But Jack Buckskin, 25, teaches people his native language at the Living Kaurna Cultural Centre where a group is gaining TAFE qualifications in the once-extinct language.

Mr Buckskin says interest in the program has been growing and the language is again thriving.

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"We've just been going through the sound system, so we've got words up there for plate, cups, bowls," he said.

"Normally there's about six teachers and the teachers come to learn a bit of language, learn the culture, and then take it back to their day schools and teach other students out there, which is good because I'm the only teacher and to raise the awareness of what's happening with the language, I need people like this that are keen to learn but keen to teach other people as well."

Mr Buckskin is also teaching teenagers at Salisbury High School in Adelaide's north, where it has become part of the syllabus.

"I've probably had 12 enrolments at the start, and a lot of the kids were forced into it," he said.

"Now [there is] a good even 50-50 of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal students.

"There's probably more students chose the language over Italian and stuff now so starting, the students that are out there are learning it, speaking it around the school, so their younger brothers, their friends, are all wanting to come and learn as well."

Surprise revival

Linguistics specialist at the University of Adelaide Dr Robert Amery says there is value in learning the language.

"Through the language you can learn a lot about culture, you can learn a lot about history," he said.

"The Kaurna language belongs to this place, to the Adelaide Plains, so it has the kind of vocabulary, the words to talk about the places here, to talk about the environment, to talk about the national species that inhabit this environment."

The university has received Federal Funding to expand its work in reviving the language, which includes the creation of a radio show spoken in native tongue.

Dr Amery says 20 years ago, he never would have imagined so many people again speaking the language.

"We've made a lot of headway, headway that I would never have foreseen," he said.

"I would have thought for a language in this state it would have been just too hard, but people were inspired, they became interested in the language, and for some people, it's become their whole life."