Aboriginal Languages Australia

First visit to SOAS Twenty years ago, on Monday 3 April 1995, your Sydney-based amateur researcher into Australian languages called on...

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...

The following was included in a notice about a future public visit to Muogamarra, dated 15 April 2013: Muogamarra Nature Reserve is a...

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...

Mooney Mooney is on the Hawkesbury River. There is a club there where lunch may be had, with a balcony offering a view over the water;...

When reviewing Wiradhuri records made by Archdeacon James Gunther around 1837, your database compiler chanced upon: This called to mind a...

One of a number of puzzles in Archdeacon Günther’s work on Wiradhuri , as printed in Fraser 1892*, relates to the reflexive. Günther had...

Suffixes attached to verbs In Australian indigenous languages, or some at least, there seem to be five kinds of suffixes that may be...

‘KOALA’: what does it mean? A koala is one of Australia’s favourite treasures of the animal kingdom. It looks almost unbearably...

Yarrangobilly is in the Snowy Mountains, about 40 km west from the southern portion of the ACT. This places it in Ngarigo country....

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 …...

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...

A personal diary entry from January 1984 has the record: “Later we all set off by car headed for Twofold Bay150 km away approx. Did this...

The word “waan”, spelt with a long double-a, appears fairly frequently in the work of Lynette Oates: Oates, Lynette Frances. 1988. The...