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Spelling Aboriginal Names in English

Real Secret River: Dyarubbin project

Saturday School of Community Languages

McGarvie, John

Wafer, James William

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Linguistics

Spelling Aboriginal Names in English

The spelling of Aboriginal names in English was a difficult affair for local Aboriginals and Europeans, both of whom grappled to find ways of standardising names.

Real Secret River: Dyarubbin project

Collaborative research project led by Professor Grace Karskens as the Coral Thomas Fellow at the State Library of New South Wales 2018-2019. Once every place on Dyarubbin and its tributaries had an Aboriginal name, reflecting ways in which this Country was understood, used and experienced. Now only a handful survive on maps and in common usage. Using a list made by Reverend John McGarvie in 1829 that records the place names used by the Aboriginal people along the Hawkesbury River (Dyarubbin), a team of Darug people, historians, archaeologists and linguists identified the original locations, allowing for the recovery, recognition and revitalisation of the river's Aboriginal history, culture and Language.

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Saturday School of Community Languages

Public secondary school which operates only on Saturdays to give students the opportunity to study the language they speak at home, if a course in that language is not offered at their own school or college.

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McGarvie, John

Second Presbyterian minister in colonial Sydney, the first incumbent at Pitt Town and Ebenezer, and of St Andrews Scots Church. While living in the area, he recorded the names of places along the Hawkesbury River, or Dyarubbin, that local Aboriginal people shared with him. His papers are held in the Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW.

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Wafer, James William

Jim Wafer is an anthropologist with a specialisation in the sub-fields of anthropological linguistics and anthropology of religion.

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