I have an interest in the Sydney Aboriginal Language.
I wrote a 16-page ‘Tourist’s Guide’ to it. I would like to put it here, but have not found out yet how to do so. In fact what I am looking at in a rectangular box for this blog posting does not look at all like the template I have just specified to get this far. (I have just discovered that if I hit ‘preview’ I get a result that looks a little more like what I expected—and is probably what you are seeing.)
‘Tourist’s Guide.pdf’ is the title of the document, and if anyone wants to see it, send a request, and I will see what I can do.

I have been working on the Sydney and nearby languages for about ten years, mainly through the creation of databases, and now have thousands of entries on various files. These have been grouped into comprehensive ‘Coastal’ and ‘Inland’ listings. The purpose in looking into the other languages is to see if they throw light on the Sydney language, and sometimes I have found that they do.

I am not myself indigenous. I find this activity to be of absorbing interest, and I would like to think it might be of some use to the indigenous people, at whose disposal I would like to place it, if they find out about it (which I would like), and if they would themselves like it.

A line I like to use is: naa-ba-wi-nya. It means, in the Sydney language, ‘I will see you’. Perhaps I will. Or perhaps ‘ngara-ba-wi-nya’ might be more appropriate, ‘ngara’ being to hear, think, listen.

JEREMY M. STEELE
19 June 2006