Woiwurrung, Taungurung and Boonwurrung are

Aboriginal languages Aboriginal language may refer to: * Indigenous language * Australian Aboriginal languages * Taiwanese aboriginal languages * Indigenous languages of the Americas The Indigenous languages of the Americas are the languages that were used by the ...

of the

Kulin nation The Kulin nation is an alliance of five Aboriginal nations in the south of Australia - up into the Great Dividing Range and the Loddon and Goulburn River valleys - which shares Culture and Language. History Before British colonisation, the ...

of Central

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Queen Victoria (1819–1901), Queen of the United Kingdom and Empress of India * Victoria (state), a state of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, a provincial capital * Victoria, Seychelles, the capi ...

. Woiwurrung was spoken by the

Woiwurrung The Woiwurrung, also spelt Woi-wurrung, Woi Wurrung, Woiwurrong, Woiworung, and Wuywurung, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Woiwurrung language group, in the Kulin alliance. The Woiwurrung people's territory in Central Victoria ex ...

and related peoples in the

Yarra River The Yarra River or historically, the Yarra Yarra River, (Kulin languages: ''Berrern'', ''Birr-arrung'', ''Bay-ray-rung'', ''Birarang'', ''Birrarung'', and ''Wongete'') is a perennial river in south-central Victoria, Australia. The lower st ...

basin, Taungurung by the

Taungurung people The Taungurung people, also spelled ''Daung Wurrung'', are Aboriginal people who are one of the Kulin nations in present-day Victoria, Australia. They consist of nine clans whose traditional language is the Taungurung language. Their Country i ...

north of the Great Dividing Range in the

Goulburn River The Goulburn River, a major inland perennial river of the Goulburn Broken catchment, part of the Murray-Darling basin, is located in the Alpine, Northern Country/North Central, and Southern Riverina regions of the Australian state of Victor ...

Valley around Mansfield, Benalla and Heathcote, and Boonwurrung by the six clans which comprised the Boonwurrung people along the coast from the

Werribee River The Werribee River is a perennial river of the Port Phillip catchment that is located on the expansive lowland plain southwest of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The headwaters of a tributary, the Lerderderg River, are north of Ballan near ...

, across the

Mornington Peninsula The Mornington Peninsula is a peninsula located in the south of Greater Melbourne, Victoria (state), Victoria, Australia. It is surrounded by Port Phillip to the west, Western Port to the east and Bass Strait to the south, and is connected to ...

Western Port Bay Western Port, (Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung: ''Warn Marin'') commonly but unofficially known as Western Port Bay, is a large Tide, tidal bay in southern Victoria (state), Victoria, Australia, opening into Bass Strait. It is the second lar ...

Wilsons Promontory Wilsons Promontory is a peninsula that forms the southernmost part of the Australian mainland, located in the state of Victoria (Australia), Victoria. South Point (Wilsons Promontory), South Point at is the southernmost tip of Wilsons Promon ...

. They are often portrayed as distinct languages, but they were mutually intelligible. Ngurai-illamwurrung (Ngurraiillam) may have been a clan name, a dialect, or a closely related language.

Classification and dialects

Boonwurrung is closely related to Woiwurrung, with which it shares 93% of its vocabulary, and to a lesser degree with Taungurung spoken north of the

Great Dividing Range The Great Dividing Range, also known as the East Australian Cordillera or the Eastern Highlands, is a cordillera system in eastern Australia consisting of an expansive collection of mountain ranges, plateaus and rolling hills. It runs roughl ...

in the area of the

, with which it shares 80%. Woiwurrung, Taungurong and Boonwurrung have been considered by linguists to be dialects of a single Central Victorian language, whose range stretched from almost

Echuca Echuca ( ) is a town on the banks of the Murray River and Campaspe River in Victoria (state), Victoria, Australia. The border town of Moama is adjacent on the northern side of the Murray River in New South Wales. Echuca is the administrative cen ...

in the north, to

in the south. R. Brough Smyth wrote in 1878 that "The dialects of the Wooeewoorong or Wawoorong tribe (River Yarra) and the Boonoorong tribe (Coast) are the same. Twenty-three words out of thirty are, making allowances for differences of spelling and pronunciation, identical; five have evidently the same roots, and only two are widely different".

Woiwurrung

Woiwurrung dialect phonology

The following is the Woiwurrung dialect: It is not clear if the two rhotics are trill and flap, or tap and approximant. Vowels in Woiwurrung are /a e i o u/.

Pronouns

In the case of the Woiwurrung pronouns, the stem seems to be the standard , but the front was

suffix In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns and adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can ca ...

ed to , so combines to form below. In Kulin languages there is no grammatical gender.

Other Woiwurrung vocabulary

* biik = land, country * boorondara = shade, darkness, night (origin of the name of the

City of Boroondara The City of Boroondara () is a local government area in Victoria, Australia. It is located in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne. It was formed in June 1994 from the amalgamation of the Cities of Kew, Camberwell and Hawthorn. It has an area of ...

) * nyilum biik = poor soil / hard land (origin of the name of Nillumbik Shire) * wominjeka = hello / welcome (womin = come, je ji= asking to come, ka = purpose) * yabber = to talk (this word, with the same meaning, has made its way into informal English) * yarra = flowing, (also means "hair"). It is thought to have been mistakenly given to the

(referred to as Birrarrung in the Woiwurrung language) by an early settler who asked a boy what it was called, who was confused and answered "it is flowing".

Number and sign system

A numbering system was used when

Wurundjeri The Wurundjeri people are an Aboriginal peoples, Aboriginal people of the Woiwurrung language, Woiwurrung language group, in the Kulin nation. They are the traditional owners of the Yarra River Valley, covering much of the present location of ...

clans sent out messengers to advise neighbouring clans of upcoming events, such as a ceremony,

corroboree A corroboree is a generic word for a meeting of Australian Aboriginal peoples. It may be a sacred ceremony, a festive celebration, or of a warlike character. A word coined by the first British settlers in the Sydney area from a word in the ...

, a challenge to fight or

Marn grook , or (also spelt ''Marn Gook'') is the popular collective name for traditional Indigenous Australian football games played at gatherings and celebrations by sometimes more than 100 players. From the Woiwurrung–Taungurung language, Woiwurun ...

ball game. Messengers carried a message stick with markings to indicate the number and type of people involved and a prop to indicate the type of event, such as a ball for a Marn grook event. The location of meeting was spoken, but neighbouring clans might not use the same language, so a sign language was used to indicate the number of days in the future when the people should assemble. The number was indicated by pointing to a location on the body from 1 to 16. After 16, at the top of the head, the count follows the equivalent locations across the other side of the body.

Boonwurrung

Placenames derived from Boonwurrung language terms

Animals and plants

Some Boonwurrung words for animals and plants include:

Plants

* Banksia (Honeysuckle): Warrak * Buttercup: Gurm-burrut *

Clematis aristata ''Clematis aristata'', known as Australian clematis, wild clematis, goat's beard or old man's beard, is a climbing shrub of the family Ranunculaceae, found in eastern Australia in dry and wet forests of Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria a ...

: Minamberang * Peppermint Tree: Wiyal * Sarsaparilla: Wadimalin *

She-oak The Casuarinaceae are a family of dicotyledonous flowering plants placed in the order Fagales, consisting of four genera and 91 species of trees and shrubs native to eastern Africa, Australia, Southeast Asia, Malesia, Papuasia, and the Pacific Is ...

: Tur-run * Wattle: Garron * Woolly Tea-tree: Wulep * Yellow Box: Dhagurn * Yam Daisy: Murnong

Birds

Black Cockatoo Black cockatoo is a general descriptive term for cockatoos that are mainly black and may include: *Palm cockatoo, ''Probosciger aterrimus'', also called great black cockatoo *Species of the genus ''Calyptorhynchus'': **Red-tailed black cockatoo, '' ...

: Yanggai * Black Duck: Toolum *

Black Swan The black swan (''Cygnus atratus'') is a large Anatidae, waterbird, a species of swan which breeds mainly in the southeast and southwest regions of Australia. Within Australia, the black swan is nomadic, with erratic migration patterns dependent ...

: Gunuwarra *

Emu The emu (; ''Dromaius novaehollandiae'') is a species of flightless bird endemism, endemic to Australia, where it is the Tallest extant birds, tallest native bird. It is the only extant taxon, extant member of the genus ''Dromaius'' and the ...

: Barraimal *

Ibis The ibis () (collective plural ibises; classical plurals ibides and ibes) are a group of long-legged wading birds in the family Threskiornithidae that inhabit wetlands, forests and plains. "Ibis" derives from the Latin and Ancient Greek word f ...

: Baibadjerruk *

Magpie lark The magpie-lark (''Grallina cyanoleuca''), also known as wee magpie, peewee, peewit, mudlark or Murray magpie, is a passerine bird native to Australia, Timor and southern New Guinea. The male and female both have black and white plumage, though ...

: Dit-dit *

Nankeen Kestrel The nankeen kestrel (''Falco cenchroides''), also known as the Australian kestrel, is a raptor native to Australia and New Guinea. It is one of the smallest falcons, and unlike many, does not rely on speed to catch its prey. Instead, it simply pe ...

: Gawarn *

Pelican Pelicans (genus ''Pelecanus'') are a genus of large water birds that make up the family Pelecanidae. They are characterized by a long beak and a large throat pouch used for catching prey and draining water from the scooped-up contents before ...

: Wadjil *

Quail Quail is a collective name for several genera of mid-sized birds generally placed in the order Galliformes. The collective noun for a group of quail is a flock, covey, or bevy. Old World quail are placed in the family Phasianidae, and New ...

: Tre-bin *

Water Fowl The Anatidae are the biological family of water birds that includes ducks, geese, and swans. The family has a cosmopolitan distribution, occurring on all the world's continents except Antarctica. These birds are adapted for swimming, floating o ...

: Kor-rung-un-un

Aquatic animals

Blackfish Blackfish is a common name for various species of fishes and cetaceans, including: Fish * Alaska blackfish (''Dallia pectoralis''), an Esocidae, esocid from Alaska, Siberia, and the Bering Sea islands * Black fish (''Carassioides acuminatus''), ...

: Duat * Cockle: Mur-yoke *

Eel Eels are ray-finned fish belonging to the order Anguilliformes (), which consists of eight suborders, 20 families, 164 genera, and about 1000 species. Eels undergo considerable development from the early larval stage to the eventual adult stage ...

: Yuk / Ilk * Flathead: Dalum *

Frog A frog is any member of a diverse and largely semiaquatic group of short-bodied, tailless amphibian vertebrates composing the order (biology), order Anura (coming from the Ancient Greek , literally 'without tail'). Frog species with rough ski ...

: Ngarrert *

Mussel Mussel () is the common name used for members of several families of bivalve molluscs, from saltwater and Freshwater bivalve, freshwater habitats. These groups have in common a shell whose outline is elongated and asymmetrical compared with other ...

: Mur-bone *

Oyster Oyster is the common name for a number of different families of salt-water bivalve molluscs that live in marine or brackish habitats. In some species, the valves are highly calcified, and many are somewhat irregular in shape. Many, but no ...

: U.yoke * Periwinkle: Pid-de-ron *

Shark Sharks are a group of elasmobranch cartilaginous fish characterized by a ribless endoskeleton, dermal denticles, five to seven gill slits on each side, and pectoral fins that are not fused to the head. Modern sharks are classified within the ...

: Darrak

Insects

Ant Ants are Eusociality, eusocial insects of the Family (biology), family Formicidae and, along with the related wasps and bees, belong to the Taxonomy (biology), order Hymenoptera. Ants evolved from Vespoidea, vespoid wasp ancestors in the Cre ...

: Booran *

Bee Bees are winged insects closely related to wasps and ants, known for their roles in pollination and, in the case of the best-known bee species, the western honey bee, for producing honey. Bees are a monophyletic lineage within the superfamil ...

: Murnalong *

Butterfly Butterflies are winged insects from the lepidopteran superfamily Papilionoidea, characterized by large, often brightly coloured wings that often fold together when at rest, and a conspicuous, fluttering flight. The oldest butterfly fossi ...

: Balam-balam *

Fly Flies are insects of the order Diptera, the name being derived from the Greek δι- ''di-'' "two", and πτερόν ''pteron'' "wing". Insects of this order use only a single pair of wings to fly, the hindwings having evolved into advanced ...

: Garragarrak

References

External links

Victorian Aboriginal Corporation for Languages

Wurundjeri Cultural Group

{{DEFAULTSORT:Woiwurrung-Daungwurrung language Wurundjeri Kulin languages Extinct languages of Victoria (state)