Jeremy Steele
BIYAL BIYAL Australian National Anthem - updated
How did this translation come about? An Aboriginal singer-songwriter acquaintance sent an email inviting Your Amateur Researcher (YAR) to...
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Jeremy Steele
- Jun 30, 2016
- 7 min
BIYAL BIYAL Words: damara or mara: 'hand'
Body parts are the best documented category of words for many Aboriginal languages because they were the most immediate and most...
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Jeremy Steele
- May 15, 2016
- 2 min
Old Mans Valley
Just to the west of Hornsby, a northern suburb of Sydney, is Old Mans Valley. One might reasonably assume that the name was inspired by...
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Jeremy Steele
- Jan 20, 2016
- 6 min
BIYAL BIYAL Australian National Anthem
How did this translation come about? An Aboriginal singer-songwriter acquaintance sent an email inviting Your Amateur Researcher (YAR) to...
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Jeremy Steele
- Dec 14, 2015
- 3 min
TASMANIA Words: 'star' shine
The word marama in the Tasmanian word lists caught the attention again today. The meaning given for it is ‘star’. DEEP TIME No-one quite...
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Jeremy Steele
- Feb 19, 2015
- 2 min
BIYAL BIYAL Words: 'butterfly'
A friend wrote: “If possible would you email the aboriginal word for butterfly.” Here is the reply: ————————– Thank you for your enquiry...
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Jeremy Steele
- Feb 6, 2015
- 4 min
Millers Point: yilgan maladul
In an article in the Sydney Morning Herald on 4 February 2015, written by Leesha McKenny, the matter is raised about giving the name of...
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Jeremy Steele
- Dec 15, 2013
- 3 min
BIYAL BIYAL: Detective mysteries
Although William Dawes is a splendid resource for understanding the classical Aboriginal language of Sydney Biyal Biyal, there are...
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Jeremy Steele
- Dec 6, 2013
- 2 min
Distant uncle
The Anon Notebook gives ‘Cow-wan’ as the name or place of Ross Farm, the farm of Major Robert Ross of the Marines, the Lieutenant...
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Jeremy Steele
- Nov 7, 2013
- 2 min
Guns, sticks and Mrs Bennelong
One of the most noticeable things about guns, when they are used, is that they go ‘bang!’ It is obvious, but we do not think about it...
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Jeremy Steele
- May 7, 2013
- 4 min
Rising, falling, and holding up
To ask ‘What was the Sydney language word for “rise”?’ would seem a simple question, but it is not. The earliest records suggest the word...
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Jeremy Steele
- Sep 27, 2012
- 5 min
Sydney clan boundaries: Cadigal and Wangal
For a number of years the University of Sydney has been acknowledging that it is situated ‘on Cadigal land’. But is it? There are few...
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Jeremy Steele
- Mar 26, 2012
- 3 min
Five verbal suffixes
Suffixes attached to verbs In Australian indigenous languages, or some at least, there seem to be five kinds of suffixes that may be...
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Jeremy Steele
- Dec 22, 2011
- 2 min
BIYAL BIYAL Words: koala
‘KOALA’: what does it mean? A koala is one of Australia’s favourite treasures of the animal kingdom. It looks almost unbearably...
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Jeremy Steele
- Nov 25, 2011
- 4 min
Zoo tour name
The local zoo was looking for guidance for a name for a walking tour of the zoo, and offered its preliminary ideas: 1 Burraga Nura …...
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Jeremy Steele
- Oct 11, 2011
- 4 min
What does yela mean?
SYDNEY WORDS William Dawes of the First Fleet wrote, on page 35 of his notebook ‘b’: P. Mr Faddy yéla Mr Clark yenyában Norfolk Island Mr...
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Jeremy Steele
- Oct 8, 2011
- 4 min
Warrang or Warrane — or ngurang?
SYDNEY WORDS One of the earliest recorded names for Sydney, or Sydney Cove, was provided by Philip Gidley King: This was derived from...
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Jeremy Steele
- May 30, 2011
- 5 min
Morooberra, the person, and Maroubra, the place
One of the indigenous people encountered by the First Fleeters was Morooberra. The Judge-Advocate, David Collins, who wrote one of the...
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Jeremy Steele
- Dec 20, 2010
- 2 min
Sirius Cove (or Mosman Bay)
The Rev. Lancelot Threlkeld ran a mission in the Newcastle, NSW, area in the period 1831-41, and while there studied the language that...
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Jeremy Steele
- Oct 11, 2010
- 1 min
BIYAL BIYAL Words: ringing
Sometime in 1791, William Dawes recorded the verb ‘to tear’, as in ‘tearing a piece of paper’: This was to prove one of many instances of...
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