Yunga Language (Australia)
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Noongar (), also Nyungar (), is an
Australian Aboriginal language The Indigenous languages of Australia number in the hundreds, the precise number being quite uncertain, although there is a range of estimates from a minimum of around 250 (using the technical definition of 'language' as non-mutually intellig ...
or
dialect continuum A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of Variety (linguistics), language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulat ...
, spoken by some members of the
Noongar The Noongar (, also spelt Noongah, Nyungar , Nyoongar, Nyoongah, Nyungah, Nyugah, and Yunga ) are Aboriginal Australian people who live in the South West, Western Australia, south-west corner of Western Australia, from Geraldton, Western Aus ...
community and others. It is taught actively in Australia, including at schools, universities and through public broadcasting. The
country A country is a distinct part of the world, such as a state, nation, or other political entity. When referring to a specific polity, the term "country" may refer to a sovereign state, state with limited recognition, constituent country, ...
of the Noongar people is the southwest corner of
Western Australia Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Aust ...
. Within that region, many Noongar words have been
adopted Adoption is a process whereby a person assumes the parenting of another, usually a child, from that person's biological or legal parent or parents. Legal adoptions permanently transfer all rights and responsibilities, along with filiation, from ...
into
Australian English Australian English (AusE, AusEng, AuE, AuEng, en-AU) is the set of variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to Australia. It is the country's common language and ''de facto'' national language. While Australia has no of ...
, particularly names of plants and animals. Noongar was first recorded in 1801 by
Matthew Flinders Captain (Royal Navy), Captain Matthew Flinders (16 March 1774 – 19 July 1814) was a British Royal Navy officer, navigator and cartographer who led the first littoral zone, inshore circumnavigate, circumnavigation of mainland Australia, then ...
, who made a number of word lists.


Varieties

OpenStreetMap OpenStreetMap (abbreviated OSM) is a free, Open Database License, open geographic database, map database updated and maintained by a community of volunteers via open collaboration. Contributors collect data from surveying, surveys, trace from Ae ...
project, and English names where they are not. Names recorded for features such as Swan River,
Perth Oval Perth Rectangular Stadium (also known as HBF Park under naming rights) is a sports stadium in Perth, the capital of the Australian state of Western Australia. Located close to Perth's central business district, the stadium currently has a m ...
and
Lake Monger Galup, formerly Lake Monger (Noongar: Galup, Keiermulu) is a large urban wetland on the Swan Coastal Plain in suburban Wembley, Western Australia, nestled between the suburbs of Leederville, Wembley and Glendalough. Located less than from ...
are not shown in this map. , there are 103 instances of the 'name:nys' tag used to record Noongar names in OpenStreetMap." lang="nys" /> It is generally agreed that there was no single, standard Noongar (or Nyungar) language before European settlement: it was a
subgroup In group theory, a branch of mathematics, a subset of a group G is a subgroup of G if the members of that subset form a group with respect to the group operation in G. Formally, given a group (mathematics), group under a binary operation  ...
(or possibly a
dialect continuum A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of Variety (linguistics), language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulat ...
) of closely related languages, whose speakers were differentiated geographically and, in some cases, by cultural practices. The dialects merged into the modern Noongar language following colonisation. A 1990 conference organised by the Nyoongar Language Project Advisory Panel recognised that the Noongar subgroup included at least three distinct languages. This was highlighted by the 2011 ''Noongar Dictionary'', edited by Bernard Rooney, which was based on the Yuat (Juat) variety, from the northwest part of the Noongar subgroup area. The highlighted area of the map shown here may correspond to the Noongar subgroup. The subdivisions shown correspond to individual
varieties Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
. In modern Noongar, these varieties have merged. There is controversy in some cases as to whether all of these varieties were part of the original Noongar subgroup. Some may have been distinct languages and some may have belonged to neighbouring subgroups. Many linguists believe that the northernmost language shown, Amangu, was not part of the Noongar subgroup, was instead a part of the Kartu subgroup, and may have been a dialect of the Kartu language Nhanda. (As such, Amangu may have been synonymous with a dialect known as Nhanhagardi, which has also been classified, at different times, as a part of Nhanda, Noongar, or
Widi Wireless Display (WiDi) is discontinued technology developed by Intel that enables users to stream music, movies, photos, videos and apps without cables from a compatible computer to a compatible HDTV or through the use of an adapter with othe ...
.) There is a general consensus that the following varieties belong to the Noongar subgroup: Wudjari, Minang, Bibelman (a.k.a. Pibelman; Bibbulman), Kaneang (Kaniyang), Wardandi, Balardung (a.k.a. Ballardong; which probably included Tjapanmay/Djabanmai), and Yuat (Juat). Wiilman, Whadjuk (Wajuk) and Pinjarup are also usually regarded as dialects of Noongar, although this identification is not completely secure. The Koreng (Goreng) people are thought to have spoken a dialect of, or closely related to, Wudjari, in which case their language would have been part of the Noongar subgroup.
Njakinjaki The Njakinjaki (Nyaki Nyaki) are an indigenous Noongar people of southern Western Australia, in the Wheatbelt and Great Southern regions. Country Njakinjaki traditional territory embraced some of land. They were east of Lake Grace, at Newdega ...
(Nyakinyaki) was possibly a dialect of Kalaamaya – a language related to, but separate from, the original Noongar subgroup. It is not clear if the
Njunga The Njunga or Nyunga are an indigenous Noongar people of Western Australia. Name ''Njunga/nyunga'' reflects a root (''njoŋa/njuŋa/njuŋar'') that signifies 'man'. They adopted the term, perhaps defensively, in response to a number of tribes w ...
(or Nunga) dialect was significantly different from Wudjari. However, according to
Norman Tindale Norman Barnett Tindale AO (12 October 1900 – 19 November 1993) was an Australian anthropologist, archaeologist, entomologist and ethnologist. He is best remembered for his work mapping the various tribal groupings of Aboriginal Australians ...
, the Njunga people rejected the name Wudjari and had adopted some of the customs of their non-Noongar-speaking eastern neighbours, the Ngadjunmaya.


Documentation

The Noongar names for birds were included in Serventy and Whittell's ''
Birds of Western Australia This is a list of the Wildness#Degrees of domestication, wild birds found in Western Australia. The list includes introduced species, common vagrancy (biology), vagrants, recently Extinction, extinct species, Local extinction, extirpated species ...
'' (1948), noting their regional variations. A later review and synthesis of recorded names and consultation with Noongars produced a list of recommended orthography and pronunciation for birds (2009) occurring in the region. The author, Ian Abbott, also published these recommendations for plants (1983) and mammals (2001), and proposed that these replace other vernacular in common use. A number of small wordlists were recorded in the early days of the
Swan River Colony The Swan River Colony, also known as the Swan River Settlement, or just ''Swan River'', was a British colony established in 1829 on the Swan River, in Western Australia. This initial settlement place on the Swan River was soon named Perth, an ...
, for example
Robert Menli Lyon Robert Menli Lyon (born Robert Milne; 1789–1874) was a pioneering Western Australian settler who became one of the earliest outspoken advocates for Indigenous Australian rights and welfare in the colony. He published the first information on th ...
's 1833 publication ''A Glance at the Manners and Language of Aboriginal Inhabitants of Western Australia''. Lyon acquired much of his information from
Yagan Yagan (;  â€“ 11 July 1833) was an Aboriginal Australian warrior from the Noongar people. Yagan was pursued by the local authorities after he killed Erin Entwhistle, a servant of farmer Archibald Butler. It was an act of retaliation aft ...
while Yagan was incarcerated on
Carnac Island Carnac Island () is a , A-Class, island nature reserve about south-west of Fremantle and north of Garden Island in Western Australia. History Carnac Island is aeolianite limestone remnant of Pleistocene dunes. In 1803, French explorer Loui ...
. Despite the significance of Lyon's work in being the first of its kind,
George Fletcher Moore George Fletcher Moore (10 December 1798 – 30 December 1886) was a prominent early settler in colonial Western Australia, and "one fthe key figures in early Western Australia's ruling elite" (Cameron, 2000). He conducted a number of exploring ...
described Lyon's work as "containing many inaccuracies and much that was fanciful". During August and October 1839 the ''
Perth Gazette ''The West Australian'' is the only locally edited daily newspaper published in Perth, Western Australia. It is owned by Seven West Media (SWM), as is the state's other major newspaper, ''The Sunday Times (Western Australia), The Sunday Times'' ...
'' published ''Vocabulary of the Aboriginal people of Western Australia'', written by Lieutenant
Grey Grey (more frequent in British English) or gray (more frequent in American English) is an intermediate color between black and white. It is a neutral or achromatic color, meaning that it has no chroma. It is the color of a cloud-covered s ...
of HM 83rd Regiment. Grey spent twelve months studying the languages of the Noongar people and came to the conclusion that there was much in common between them. Just prior to publication, he received from Mr Bussel of the
Busselton Busselton is a city in the South West (Western Australia), South West region of the States and territories of Australia, state of Western Australia approximately south-west of Perth. Busselton has a long history as a popular holiday destin ...
district a list of 320 words from that region which was near identical to those he had collected in the Swan River region. Much to Grey's disappointment, his work was published in an unfinished list as he was leaving the colony, but he believed that the publication would assist in communication between settlers and Noongar people. Also noted by Grey was that the Noongar language had no soft sound, there was no use of and that was very rarely used and never at the start of a word. Serious documentation of the Noongar language began in 1842 with the publication of ''
A Descriptive Vocabulary of the Language in Common Use Amongst the Aborigines of Western Australia ''A Descriptive Vocabulary of the Language in Common Use Amongst the boriginals...of Western Australia'' is a book by George Fletcher Moore. First published in 1842, it represents one of the earliest attempts to record the languages used by the ...
'' by
George Fletcher Moore George Fletcher Moore (10 December 1798 – 30 December 1886) was a prominent early settler in colonial Western Australia, and "one fthe key figures in early Western Australia's ruling elite" (Cameron, 2000). He conducted a number of exploring ...
, later republished in 1884 as part of Moore's diary. This work included a substantial wordlist of Noongar. The first modern linguistic research on Noongar was carried out by
Gerhardt Laves Gerhardt Laves (July 15, 1906 – March 14, 1993) was a graduate student at the University of Chicago and Yale University who between August 1929 and August 1931 undertook extensive fieldwork on Australian Aboriginal languages. Laves was probably ...
on the variety known as "Koreng", near Albany in 1930, but this material was lost for many years and has only recently been recovered. Beginning in the 1930s and then more intensively in the 1960s Wilfrid Douglas learnt and studied Noongar, eventually producing a grammar, dictionary, and other materials. More recently, Noongar people have taken a major role in this work as researchers, for example Rose Whitehurst who compiled the ''Noongar Dictionary'' in her work for the Noongar Language and Culture Centre. In 2012 Tim McCabe finished a PhD on Noongar place names, songs and stories, having been taught a variety of the language by Clive Humphreys of Kellerberrin, and is teaching Noongar to inmates in Perth prisons. Peter Bindon and Ross Chadwick have compiled an authoritative cross referenced "A Nyoongar Wordlist: from the South West of Western Australia", by assembling material from all of the above writers in their original spelling. It is clear from this reference that the orthographies used reflected not only dialectical differences, but also how the various authors "heard" and transcribed spoken Noongar.


Current situation


Neo-Nyungar

An English dialect with Noongar admixture, known as Neo-Nyungar, is the community dialect of the Nyungar people.


Number of speakers

On the 2016 census, 443 people identified themselves as speaking Noongar at home. Since the late 20th century, there has been increased interest in reviving the Noongar/Nyungar language, including teaching it at many schools throughout the south west of
Western Australia Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Aust ...
. it is one of the 24 Aboriginal languages being taught at 68 schools in Western Australia to around 10,000 students.
Curtin University Curtin University (previously Curtin University of Technology and Western Australian Institute of Technology) is an Australian public university, public research university based in Bentley, Western Australia, Bentley, Perth, Western Australia. ...
offers an open online Noongar language and culture course.


Noongar Language Centre

The Noongar Language and Culture Centre was set up at the Bunbury Aboriginal Progress Association in 1986, and grew to include offices in Northam and Perth. Authors such as Charmaine Bennell have released several books in the language. Educators Glenys Collard and Rose Whitehurst started recording elders speaking using Noongar language in 1990. In 1997 at a meeting of around 200 Noongar people at
Marribank Marribank, earlier known as Carrolup Native Settlement, is located in the Shire of Kojonup, Western Australia, approximately north-west of Katanning. It was the site of one of two large native settlements for Indigenous Australians establishe ...
, a standard
orthography An orthography is a set of convention (norm), conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, punctuation, Word#Word boundaries, word boundaries, capitalization, hyphenation, and Emphasis (typography), emphasis. Most national ...
was agreed on for teaching the language in schools. A unanimous vote decided that the language would be spelt "Nyoongar", but later, as teaching and learning resources were being developed for the
Languages Other Than English LOTE or Languages Other Than English is a term often used in education for languages besides English in Australian jurisdictions, such as NSW, Queensland, Tasmania, and Victoria; and American jurisdictions, such as California, New York, and T ...
(LOTE) curriculum which would be taught in schools, it was decided to change to "Noongar". By 2010, 37 schools in the
South West Southwest is a compass point. Southwest, south-west, south west, southwestern or south-western or south western may also refer to: * Southwest (direction), an intercardinal direction Geography *South West Queensland, Australia *South West (Weste ...
and
Perth Perth () is the list of Australian capital cities, capital city of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth-most-populous city in Australia, with a population of over 2.3 million within Greater Perth . The ...
were teaching the language. In 2014, the Noongar Boodjar Language Cultural Aboriginal Corporation (NBLCAC) was incorporated, and the
Commonwealth Government The Australian Government, also known as the Commonwealth Government or simply as the federal government, is the national executive government of Australia, a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy. The executive consists of the prime ...
provided funding for four years from 2015 under the Indigenous Languages Support program to establish the Noongar Language Centre. The offices are located in Cannington.


Noongarpedia

In 2015 Professor Len Collard from the School of Indigenous Studies at the
University of Western Australia University of Western Australia (UWA) is a public research university in the Australian state of Western Australia. The university's main campus is in Crawley, Western Australia, Crawley, a suburb in the City of Perth local government area. UW ...
challenged the science behind the claim that it is an endangered language, citing the lack of rigour in the data. Collard began leading a project to create the " Noongarpedia", recording the language in a
wiki A wiki ( ) is a form of hypertext publication on the internet which is collaboratively edited and managed by its audience directly through a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages that can either be edited by the public or l ...
format, allowing for expansion over time. The project is continuing , with the site growing in the
Wikimedia Incubator The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. (WMF) is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California, and registered there as a charitable foundation. It is the host of Wikipedia, the eighth most visited website ...
. It is the first Wikipedia in an Aboriginal Australian language site, but it is intended to be
bilingual Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. When the languages are just two, it is usually called bilingualism. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolin ...
, so as to be used as a teaching aid in schools.


Language through the arts

Singer-songwriter Gina Williams has promoted the use of the language through song, including
lullabies A lullaby (), or a cradle song, is a soothing song or piece of music that is usually played for (or sung to) children (for adults see music and sleep). The purposes of lullabies vary. In some societies, they are used to pass down cultural know ...
for children and a translation of the song "
Moon River "Moon River" is a song composed by Henry Mancini with lyrics by Johnny Mercer. It was originally performed by Audrey Hepburn in the 1961 film '' Breakfast at Tiffany's'', winning an Academy Award for Best Original Song. The song also won the 19 ...
". An adaption and translation of the
Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...
an tragedy ''
Macbeth ''The Tragedy of Macbeth'', often shortened to ''Macbeth'' (), is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, estimated to have been first performed in 1606. It dramatises the physically violent and damaging psychological effects of political ambiti ...
'' into Noongar was performed at the 2020
Perth Festival Perth Festival, named Perth International Arts Festival (PIAF) between 2000 and 2017, and sometimes referred to as the Festival of Perth, is Australia's longest-running cultural festival, held annually in Western Australia. The program features ...
. The play, named ''Hecate'', is produced by Yirra Yaakin Theatre Company with
Bell Shakespeare Bell Shakespeare is an Australian theatre company specialising in the works of William Shakespeare, his contemporaries and other classics. Founded by actor John Bell and based in Sydney, it is Australia's only national theatre company. Apart f ...
, and performed by an all-Noongar cast. The play took years to translate, and has sparked wider interest in reviving the language. On July 2022, rock band
King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard (KGLW) are an Australian rock band formed in 2010 in Melbourne, Victoria. The band's current lineup consists of Stu Mackenzie (vocals, guitar), Ambrose Kenny-Smith (vocals, harmonica, keyboards), Cook Craig ( ...
released a special edition of their album ''
Butterfly 3000 ''Butterfly 3000'' is the eighteenth studio album by Australian psychedelic rock band King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, released on 11 June 2021. It is the band's first album not released on Flightless Records, instead being released on the band ...
'' with all its 10 songs translated into Noongar by Merinda Hansen and Lois Spehn-Jackson; all proceedings of this edition are donated to the Langford Aboriginal Association.


Mobile apps

Several
mobile app A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a smartphone, phone, tablet computer, tablet, or smartwatch, watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop appli ...
s have been created that use Noongar language, both written and spoken. These include a plant identification app, dictionary, and cultural information.


Phonology

The following are the sounds in the Noongar language:


Vowels


Consonants

/r/ can be heard as either , ɾor a glide ¹


Pronunciation


Grammar

Noongar grammar is fairly typical of
Pama–Nyungan languages The Pama–Nyungan languages () are the most widespread language family, family of Australian Aboriginal languages, containing 306 out of 400 Aboriginal languages in Australia. The name "Pama–Nyungan" is a merism: it is derived from the two e ...
in that it is
agglutinating An agglutinative language is a type of language that primarily forms words by stringing together morphemes (word parts)—each typically representing a single grammatical meaning—without significant modification to their forms ( agglutinations) ...
, with words and phrases formed by the addition of affixes to verb and noun stems.
Word order In linguistics, word order (also known as linear order) is the order of the syntactic constituents of a language. Word order typology studies it from a cross-linguistic perspective, and examines how languages employ different orders. Correlatio ...
in Noongar is free, but generally tends to follow a subject–object–verb pattern. Because there are several
varieties Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
of Noongar, aspects of grammar, syntax and orthography are highly regionally variable.


Verbs

Like most Australian languages, Noongar has a complex tense and aspect system. The plain verb stem functions as both the infinitive and the present tense. Verb phrases are formed by adding suffixes or adverbs to the verb stem. The following adverbs are used to indicate
grammatical tense In grammar, tense is a grammatical category, category that expresses time reference. Tenses are usually manifested by the use of specific forms of verbs, particularly in their grammatical conjugation, conjugation patterns. The main tenses found ...
or aspect. *later (, "will eat later") * future (, "will eat after a while") * conditional (, "should eat") Some tense/aspect distinctions are indicated by use of a verb suffix. In Noongar, the past or preterite tense is the same as the past participle. *''-iny''progressive (, "eating") *''-ga''past (, "ate, had eaten") A few adverbs are used with the past tense to indicate the amount of time since the event of the verb took place. * a long time (, "ate a long time ago") *a short time (, "ate a little while ago") *just now (, "just ate")


Nouns

There are no articles in Noongar. Nouns (as well as adjectives) take a variety of suffixes which indicate
grammatical case A grammatical case is a category of nouns and noun modifiers (determiners, adjectives, participles, and Numeral (linguistics), numerals) that corresponds to one or more potential grammatical functions for a Nominal group (functional grammar), n ...
, specifically relating to motion or direction, among other distinctions. The direct object of a sentence (what might be called the dative) can also be expressed with the locative suffix -''ak''.
Grammatical number In linguistics, grammatical number is a Feature (linguistics), feature of nouns, pronouns, adjectives and verb agreement (linguistics), agreement that expresses count distinctions (such as "one", "two" or "three or more"). English and many other ...
is likewise expressed by the addition of suffixes. Nouns that end in vowels take the plural suffix -''man'', whereas nouns that end in consonants take -''gar''. Inanimate nouns, that is, nouns that do not denote human beings, can also be pluralized by the simple addition of a numeral.


Pronouns

Noongar pronouns are declined exactly as nouns, taking the same endings. Thus, possessive pronouns are formed by the addition of the regular genitive suffix -''ang''. Conversely, object pronouns are formed by the addition of the -''any'' suffix. Notably, there does not appear to be a great deal of pronominal variation across dialectal lines. :: Noongar features a set of
dual number In algebra, the dual numbers are a hypercomplex number system first introduced in the 19th century. They are expressions of the form , where and are real numbers, and is a symbol taken to satisfy \varepsilon^2 = 0 with \varepsilon\neq 0. D ...
pronouns which identify interpersonal relationships based on
kinship In anthropology, kinship is the web of social relationships that form an important part of the lives of all humans in all societies, although its exact meanings even within this discipline are often debated. Anthropologist Robin Fox says that ...
or marriage. The "fraternal" dual pronouns are used by and for people who are siblings or close friends, "paternal" dual pronouns are used by and for people who are paternal relatives (parent-child, uncle-niece and so forth), and "marital" pronouns are used by and for people who are married to each other or are in-laws. :: Typically, if the subject of a sentence is not qualified by a numeral or adjective, a subject-marker pronoun is used. Thus: (lit. "kangaroo it on-rock standing"), "the kangaroo is standing on the rock."


Adjectives

Adjectives precede nouns. Some adjectives form the comparative by addition of the suffix -''jin'' but more generally the comparative is formed by
reduplication In linguistics, reduplication is a Morphology (linguistics), morphological process in which the Root (linguistics), root or Stem (linguistics), stem of a word, part of that, or the whole word is repeated exactly or with a slight change. The cla ...
, a common feature in Pama-Nyungan languages. The same is also true for intensified or emphatic adjectives, comparable to the English word ''very''. The superlative is formed by the addition of -''jil''.


Negation

Statements are negated by adding the appropriate particle to the end of the sentence. There are three negation particles: *used generally with verbs *used generally with adjectives There is also an adverbial negation word, , roughly equivalent to the English ''less'' or ''without''.


Interrogatives

Questions are formed by the addition of the interrogative interjection alongside the infinitive root of the verb.


Vocabulary

Many words vary in a regular way from dialect to dialect, depending on the area. For example: the words for
bandicoot Bandicoots are a group of more than 20 species of small to medium-sized, terrestrial, largely nocturnal marsupial omnivores in the order Peramelemorphia. They are endemic to the Australia–New Guinea region, including the Bismarck Archipela ...
include (south) and (west); the word for water may be (south) or (west), or the word for fire may vary from to . A large number of modern place names in Western Australia end in ''
-up -up is a suffix commonly found in Toponym, place names in South West (Western Australia), south western Western Australia. The suffix originated in a dialect of Noongar, an Australian Aboriginal language, in which "-up" means "place of". ...
'', such as
Joondalup Joondalup () is a suburb of Perth, Western Australia, approximately north of Perth central business district, Perth's central business district. It contains the central business district of the regional City of Joondalup and acts as the primar ...
, Nannup and Manjimup. This is because in the Noongar language, ''-up'' means "place of". For example, the name Ongerup means "place of the male kangaroo". The word , or in Noongar meant "a gathering". Daisy Bates suggests that central to Noongar culture was the , referring to those that gather around the hearth (). Noongar words which have been adopted into Western Australian English, or more widely in English, include the given name Kylie, "boomerang", or , the freshwater
crayfish Crayfish are freshwater crustaceans belonging to the infraorder Astacidea, which also contains lobsters. Taxonomically, they are members of the superfamilies Astacoidea and Parastacoidea. They breathe through feather-like gills. Some spe ...
''
Cherax quinquecarinatus ''Cherax quinquecarinatus'' is a small freshwater crayfish endemic to the south-west corner of Australia. It is one of two species known as gilgie, or jilgi, which is a seasonal food source for people of the region. Gilgies are found throughout a ...
'', and or , "spear". The word for smoke, , was adopted for the family of compounds known as
karrikin Karrikins are a group of plant growth regulators found in the smoke of burning plant material. Karrikins help stimulate seed germination and plant development because they mimic a signaling hormone known as strigolactone. Strigolactones are hor ...
s. The word ''
quokka The quokka (; ''Setonix brachyurus'') is a small macropod about the size of a domestic cat. It is the only member of the genus ''Setonix''. Like other marsupials in the macropod family (such as kangaroos and wallabies), the quokka is herbiv ...
'', denoting a type of small macropod, is thought to come from Noongar.


See also

* Boodjar Nyungar Placenames


Notes


References


Sources

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


External links


Bibliography of Bibbulman language and people resources
at the
Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies The Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS), established as the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies (AIAS) in 1964, is an independent Australian Government statutory authority. It is a collecting, ...

Noongarpedia word list
(under construction)
Billardong Noongar Waangkany Ballardong Noongar dictionary

Digital Daisy Bates
digitised and geo-tagged lists of Aboriginal words, including Noongar {{Pama–Nyungan languages, South Pama–Nyungan languages