Turramurra is a leafy suburb on the North Shore of Sydney. The meaning given for Turramurra in popular placenames booklets is ‘high land’ or ‘high’, as shown in Table 1 below. The original source or sources for such claims did not form part of the information provided in these works. Richardson (n.d.) gives ‘Lane Cove’ as the meaning, or effectively Turramurra itself. Australian respelt English EngJSM source “Turramurra” daramara  “High land; small watercourse” hill  McCarthy

It seems unlikely that any place name in Australia could have led to as many theories about how its name arose as Dee Why, a coastal suburb of northern Sydney. Here is how it all began: The source of it all was an entry made by Irish explorer-surveyor and ex-convict James Meehan (1774-1826). Transported for a political ‘offence’, Meehan arrived in Australia in 1800 and was soon to be working as a surveyor out of Sydney, his duties taking him around the State, and to Victoria

Energy supply: when there is a power failure nothing at home works: the lights, the toaster, the microwave, the jug or anything else electrical. Some may recall the petrol strikes in the 1970s and 80s that threw domestic and commercial motor fleets into chaos: as each strike dragged on, drivers were forced to rely on only what was left in their fuel tanks. At the time of the First Fleet, the source of power for the fleet of sailing ships was winds. No wind—and a ship was beca

Tyrell and McCarthy both give “Water breaking over rocks” as the meaning for Bondi, Sydney's famous beachside suburb.  McCarthy, F.D.  New South Wales Aboriginal Place Names and Euphonious Words, with Their Meanings . Sydney: The Australian Museum, 1963. Tyrrell, James R. Australian Aboriginal Place-Names and Their Meanings . Sydney: Tyrrell's Pty. Ltd., 1933 (reprinted 1944, 1949, 1951, 1953). They are two of a number of people who compiled and published lists of Aboriginal

The name of Sydney's inner-city harbourside eastern suburb Woolloomooloo was first recorded in the Anon Sydney Language notebook around 1790: Australian respelt English EngJSM source "Walla-mool" wala-mul "Cove next to Farm Cove" Woolloomooloo Anon (c) [c:36:17] [BB] [NSW] [1790-91] No meaning is given, but the word is shown in two parts. It crops up again and again after this, but rarely with a meaning attached. Such meanings as do occur include the following:     "Wullamull

It is often claimed that the Aboriginal the name for Sydney was Warang . Your Amateur Researcher previously speculated about this in the post ‘ Warrang or Warrane — or ngurang? ’ Certainly the compiler of the Anon notebook thought Sydney Cove was Waran : Anon Notebook c:36:1 https://www.williamdawes.org/ms/msview.php?image-id=book-c-pages-52-53 Even William Dawes used the name Warang for Sydney Cove, or Sydney: Dawes Notebook b:33:4.2 https://www.williamdawes.org/ms/msview.

How did this translation come about? An Aboriginal singer-songwriter acquaintance sent an email inviting Your Amateur Researcher (YAR) to look at what he had just done. He had produced a draft of a translation of the Australian National Anthem. It was soon apparent that this was more a collection of concepts than a grammatical narrative. It prompted a new attempt, one that a speaker such as Mr Bennelong might have understood. A line-by-line consideration of this alternative t

Body parts are the best documented category of words for many Aboriginal languages because they were the most immediate and most unambiguous items to enquire about, when investigating a new language without shared vocabulary between the investigator and the informant. The earliest records of the Sydney language were made at Botany Bay by three members of Captain James Cook’s party in 1770, two of whom noted the word for ‘hand’: Australian respelt English EngJSM source "dammir

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 an old man once living there. It would have had its share of old men, as does anywhere else. In Old Mans Valley an occasional black wallaby is to be seen, and the name might actually relate to kangaroos. In some Aboriginal languages there is a connection between words for ‘man’ and ‘kangaroo‘ — especially male kangaroos. The by now fairly wel

How did this translation come about? An Aboriginal singer-songwriter acquaintance sent an email inviting Your Amateur Researcher (YAR) to look at what he had just done. He had produced a draft of a translation of the Australian National Anthem. It was soon apparent that this was more a collection of concepts than a grammatical narrative. It prompted a new attempt, one that a speaker such as Mr Bennelong might have understood. A line-by-line consideration of this alternative t

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 knows when the last person was able to walk from the Australian mainland to Tasmania. Why it was possible at all was because it was the ice age — or more precisely the last ice age. In fact we are still in the remnants of that ice age, because ice is still piled up, sometimes kilometres thick it is said, in Antarctica. If it all melted, they

A friend wrote: “If possible would you email the aboriginal word for butterfly.” Here is the reply: ————————– Thank you for your enquiry...

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...

Although William Dawes is a splendid resource for understanding the classical Aboriginal language of Sydney Biyal Biyal, there are...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Suffixes attached to verbs In Australian indigenous languages, or some at least, there seem to be five kinds of suffixes that may be attached to verb stems. Not all five are present every time, and in fact it seems to be rare to have more than one, two or three of them. They might be classed as follows: transitiviser [trvsr]  stem-forming suffix [SFX] derivational suffix [DFX] status suffix tense marker In some languages (such as Wiradhuri and the Sydney language Biyal Biyal

A koala is one of Australia’s favourite treasures of the animal kingdom. It looks almost unbearably attractive and cuddly. On closer scrutiny koalas seem to spend most of their time asleep, and they are scarcely cuddly, with claws, and perhaps with a temperament that has never made them household pets in the manner of cats and dogs. ‘Koala’ is an indigenous word that might have been retranscribed as guwala , but probably more properly as gula as the following examples suggest