Aboriginal Languages Australia

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...

SYDNEY WORDS One of the earliest recorded names for Sydney, or Sydney Cove, was provided by Philip Gidley King: This was derived from...

One of the indigenous people encountered by the First Fleeters was Morooberra. The Judge-Advocate, David Collins, who wrote one of the...

The Rev. Lancelot Threlkeld ran a mission in the Newcastle, NSW, area in the period 1831-41, and while there studied the language that...

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...

Everyone knows the bush call ‘cooee’. Not so many know that it is an Indigenous word, and that it means ‘come’. It was recorded by...

On page 101 of the Rev. William Ridley's Kamilaroi and Other Languages (KAOL)* the following occurs in a list of 21 Dharawal words or...

The Rev. William Ridley (1819-1878) wrote an article, ‘Australian languages and traditions’ (AL&T), published in the February 1878 issue...

barang crops up a lot. It seems to mean ‘carry’, ‘bring’ and the like. But is is also used in combinations, where it seems to have the...

A large number of Nyungar words end in -gur but no common thread jumps out to suggest a meaning. gur also occurs on its own, as does the...

English commonly has specific words to express shades of meaning. It has, for example, endless words for colour names: not only ‘red’ but...

There are several words to express ‘bad’, but it is interesting to note one similarity between the Nyungar language of south-west Western...

Not surprisingly, no-one has found the Naabawinya site so far, but perhaps this will change. I have put into modest circulation some...

I have an interest in the Sydney Aboriginal Language. I wrote a 16-page ‘Tourist’s Guide’ to it. I would like to put it here, but have...