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For all that is now known, the Aboriginal people of Sydney first encountered by Europeans did not have a name for their language or even for themselves as a distinct group. They used the word yura (transcribed by First Fleet recorders as ‘eora’) to mean ‘people’, and the only people around apart from the Europeans were they themselves. They had distinct words for ‘man’ (mula, possibly mala [transcribed as ‘mulla’]) and ‘woman’ (dyin [transcribed variously as ‘gin’, ‘din’ and similar]).
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Learn why Steele refers to the Sydney language as it was spoken at the time of the Europeans' arrival as Biyal Biyal.
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