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Home Aboriginal
People of the Sydney Region
Clans and language groups
The Aboriginal clan names used in the map on this web site come from manuscripts and publications dated between 1790 and
1798. It is only after the 1870s that the names Darug, Dharawal, Darginung and Gundungurra were used by pioneer anthropologists
and linguists to refer to the languages spoken in the Sydney and surrounding regions, and only in 1970 that the name Guringai
(originally used in 1892 to refer to people living between Port Macquarie in the north to Bulli in the south) was used
for a language of the Sydney region.
Spelling variations occur throughout the historical literature and through to the present. This site uses the spellings
listed below, which follow the linguistic conventions used by linguist Jakelin Troy (1993), but also provides a number
of different spellings for each language group and clan as documented between 1788-1800.
Language groups: Darginung, Darug, Dharawal, Gundungurra, Guringai. There were at least two dialects in the Darug language:
a coastal dialect spoken between Botany Bay and Port Jackson, and a hinterland dialect to the west on the Cumberland Plain.
A separate language Guringai may have been spoken north of Port Jackson or possibly another Darug dialect. Dharawal was
spoken south of Botany Bay and west as far as the Georges River, and Darginung to the north-west of the Hawkesbury River.
Clan names: Bediagal, Birrabirragalleon, Borogegal, Boromedegal, Buruberongal, Gadigal Gahbrogal, Gamarigal, Gannemegal,
Garigal, Gweagal, Kameygal, Darramurragal, Wallumedegal, Wangal
For information about the basis for the names and maps presented in this web site and contemporary accounts which provide
variations, the following resources may be useful:
- Attenbrow, V 2002 Sydney's Aboriginal Past, UNSW Press, Sydney.
- Kohen JL (1993) The Darug and Their Neighbours. The Traditional Aboriginal Owners of the Sydney Region. Darug
Link in assoc. with Blacktown & District Historical Society, Blacktown, Sydney.
- Kohen, JL & Lampert, RJ (1987) Hunters and fishers in the Sydney region. In: Mulvaney, DJ & White, JP (eds),
Australians to 1788, pp 343-65. Fairfax, Syme & Weldon Associates, Sydney.
- Local Aboriginal Land Council Boundaries of New South Wales, as required by the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs,
under the Aboriginal Land Rights Act, Land Information Centre, Department of Land and Water Conservation, Bathurst (Wall
Map).
- Hinkson M. 2001. Aboriginal Sydney, A guide to important places of the past and present, Aboriginal Studies
Press, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, Canberra.
- Troy, J 1993 The Sydney Language. Jakelin Troy, Canberra.
- Turbet P. 2001. The Aborigines of the Sydney District before 1788. Kangaroo Press, NSW.
- Geographical Names Board
http://www.lpi.nsw.gov.au/geog/
- City of Sydney: Barani, Indigenous History of Sydney City http://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/barani/
Copyright © Australian Museum, 2002
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