Aboriginal Languages Australia

There is a place on Lake Macquarie, near Newcastle, in New South Wales, called Eleebana. Internet searches result in statements that it...

Energy supply: when there is a power failure nothing at home works: the lights, the toaster, the microwave, the jug or anything else...

Your Amateur Researcher (YAR) happened to go to Glenorie recently, a rural suburb in the northwest of Sydney. On the way he wondered...

It is not only Your Amateur Researcher (YAR) who finds trying to make sense of the Tasmanian records difficult. Terry Crowley and R.M.W....

Among Australian languages the Tasmanian Aboriginal languages are a special case. The island of Tasmania has been separated from the...

Tyrell and McCarthy both give “Water breaking over rocks” as the meaning for Bondi, Sydney's famous beachside suburb.  McCarthy, F.D. ...

The name of Sydney's inner-city harbourside eastern suburb Woolloomooloo was first recorded in the Anon Sydney Language notebook around...

The somewhat awkward figure of the Rev. L.E. Threlkeld occupied the attentions of Your Amateur Researcher for several years, in...

At the end of March 2025 Your Amateur Researcher travelled with Aurora Coach Tours on a trip lasting about ten days to South Australia's...

It is often claimed that the Aboriginal the name for Sydney was Warang . Your Amateur Researcher previously speculated about this in the...

A package holiday coach tour in August 2024 went from Broome in Western Australia to Perth. One of the places visited was the Pinnacles,...

The following is a typical summary table from the Bayala databases presenting a few of the words for ‘kangaroo’ across the country. The...

Who was Mathews? One of the principal figures in the recording of Aboriginal languages, particularly in the Sydney region, was Robert...

How did this translation come about? An Aboriginal singer-songwriter acquaintance sent an email inviting Your Amateur Researcher (YAR) to...

The following entry from the Macquarie archive gives basic information about the brolga but does not explain where the term ‘native...

Dieri is an Aboriginal language once spoken to the east of Lake Eyre in Cooper Creek country  in the Sturt Stony Desert in north-west...

Lancelot Edward Threlkeld, born in 1788, is, or was, exactly 150 years older than your modern-day amateur student of Awabakal, the Lake...

Picture the lonely austere missionary the Rev. Lancelot Edward Threlkeld, deep in Aboriginal country sometime between 1834 and 1837 in...

The Lake Macquarie missionary the Rev. Lancelot Threlkeld produced a grammar of the language where his mission was established. This...

THE ANNUAL REPORT OF THE MISSION TO THE ABORIGINES, LAKE MACQUARIE, FOR MDCCCXXXVIII Ebenezer, Lake Macquarie, New South Wales, December...