| Dharug | |
|---|---|
| Sydney, Iyora, Gadigal, Darug, Dharuk, Biyal Biyal | |
| Native to | Australia |
| Region | New South Wales |
| Ethnicity | Dharug,Eora (Yura) (Gadigal,Wangal,Cammeraygal,Wallumettagal,Bidjigal) |
| Extinct | late 19th–early 20th century |
| Revival | Small number[quantify] ofL2 speakers |
| Dialects |
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | xdk |
| Glottolog | sydn1236 |
| AIATSIS[1] | S64 |
| ELP | Dharug |
 Dharug is classified as Critically Endangered by theUNESCOAtlas of the World's Languages in Danger. | |
| This article containsIPA phonetic symbols. Without properrendering support, you may seequestion marks, boxes, or other symbols instead ofUnicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA. | |
TheDharug language, also speltDarug,Dharuk, and other variants, and also known as theSydney language,Gadigal language (Sydney city area), is anAustralian Aboriginal language of theYuin–Kuric group that was traditionally spoken in the region ofSydney,New South Wales, until it became extinct due to effects of colonisation. It is the traditional language of theDharug people. The Dharug population has greatly diminished since the onset ofcolonisation.[2][3] The termEora language has sometimes been used to distinguish a coastal dialect fromhinterland dialects, but there is no evidence that Aboriginal peoples ever used this term, which simply means "people".[4] Some effort has been put intoreviving a reconstructed form of the language.
The speakers did not use a specificname for their language prior to settlement by theFirst Fleet. The coastal dialect has been referred to as Iyora (also spelt as Iora or Eora), which simply means "people" (orAboriginal people), while the inland dialect has been referred to as Dharug, a term of unknown origin or meaning.[5][4] Linguist and anthropologistJakelin Troy (2019) describes two dialects of the Sydney language, with neither Dharug (S64) nor Eora being in the historical record as language names.[1][3]
Language scholar Jeremy Steele and historianKeith Vincent Smith have postulated the name "Biyal Biyal" for the language, based on evidence that this term or something like it was actually used.[6][7][8]
A website devoted to Dharug andDharawal resources says "The word Daruk was assigned to the Iyura (Eora) people as a language group, or more commonly referred to as the people that sustained their diet by the constant digging of theyams as a vegetable supplement. The Dark, Darug, Tarook, Taruk Tarug is related to the wordMidyini, meaning yam".[9]
The traditional territory of the coastal variety ("Iyora/Eyora", orKuringgai) was estimated byVal Attenbrow (2002) to include "...the Sydney Peninsula (north ofBotany Bay, south ofPort Jackson, west toParramatta), as well as the country to the north of Port Jackson, possibly as far asBroken Bay".[4]
Attenbrow places the "hinterland dialect" (Dharug) "...on theCumberland Plain fromAppin in the south to theHawkesbury River in the north; west of theGeorges River, Parramatta, theLane Cove River andBerowra Creek".R. H. Mathews (1903) said that the territory extended "...along the coast to the Hawkesbury River, and inland to what are now the towns ofWindsor,Penrith,Campbelltown".[1]
The word "Eora" has been used as anethnonym by non-Aboriginal people since the late 19th century, and by Aboriginal people since the late 20th century, to describe Aboriginal peoples of the Sydney region, despite there being "no evidence that Aboriginal people had used it in 1788 as the name of a language or group of people inhabiting the Sydney peninsula".[10][1]
With a traditional heritage spanning thousands of years, approximately 70 per cent of the Eora people died out during the nineteenth century as a result of the genocidal policies of colonial Australia,smallpox and other viruses, and the destruction of their natural food sources.
Radiocarbon dating suggests human activity occurred in and around Sydney for at least 30,000 years, in theUpper Paleolithic period.[11][12] However, numerous Aboriginal stone tools found in Sydney'sfar western suburbs gravel sediments were dated to be from 45,000 to 50,000 years BP, which would mean that humans could have been in the region earlier than thought.[13][14]
Dharug people recogniseWilliam Dawes of theFirst Fleet and flagship, theSirius, as the first to record the original traditional tongue of the elder people of Sydney Dharugule-wayaun from an Aboriginal woman named Patyegarang.[15][16] Dawes was returned to England in December 1791, after disagreements with Governor Phillip on, among other things, thepunitive expedition launched following the wounding of the Government gamekeeper,[17] allegedly byPemulwuy, a Yora man.
The Indigenous population of Sydney gradually started using English more in everyday usage, as well as New South Wales Pidgin. This, combined with social upheaval, meant that the local Dharug language started to fade from use in the late nineteenth/early twentieth century.[18] A wordlist of the local Sydney language was published by William Ridley in 1875, and he noted that, at that time, very few fluent speakers were left.[19]
The Dharug language had largely been lost as an extinct language, mainly due to the historical effects of colonisation on the speakers.[20] Some vocabulary had been retained by some Dharug people, but only very little grammar[21] andphonology. For many years non-Aboriginal academics collected resources for Aboriginal languages to preserve them, and more recently, Aboriginal people have been getting involved in the process, and in designing tools to reclaim the language.[9] During the 1990s and 2000s, some descendants of the Dharug clans inWestern Sydney made considerable efforts to revive Dharug as a spoken language. In the 21st century, some modern Dharug speakers have given speeches in a reconstructed form of the Dharug language, and younger members of the community visit schools and give demonstrations of spoken Dharug.[22]
In 2005 aMacquarie University master's thesis by Jeremy Steele, "The Aboriginal Language of Sydney", provided an analysis of the grammar in a partial reconstruction of the language. The notebooks ofWilliam Dawes were the main source, together with word lists compiled by First FleetersDavid Collins,John Hunter,Philip Gidley King (in Hunter),Daniel Southwell,Watkin Tench,David Blackburn, a notebook called "Anon" (or "Notebook c"),Henry Fulton, and later contributors such as Daniel Paine,James Bowman, and others. Dawes was particularly helpful in establishing how verbs operated: past and future tenses were indicated by suffixes or endings, often with further pronoun suffixes attached, revealing who (I, you, they, etc.) was responsible for the actions concerned.[6][23]
A recreated version of the language is spoken atwelcome ceremonies conducted by the Dharug people.[21]
As of 2005, some children atChifley College's Dunheved campus in Sydney had started learning the reconstructed Dharug language,[24][25] and parts of the language have been taught at theSydney Festival.[26]
In December 2020, Olivia Fox sang a version ofAustralia's national anthem in Dharug at theTri Nations Test match between Australia and Argentina.[27]
| Peripheral | Laminal | Apical | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bilabial | Velar | Palatal | Dental | Alveolar | Retroflex | |
| Stop | b | k | c | t̪ | t | |
| Nasal | m | ŋ | ɲ | n̪ | n | |
| Lateral | ʎ | l | ||||
| Rhotic | r | ɻ | ||||
| Semivowel | w | j | ||||
| Front | Back | |
|---|---|---|
| High | i | u |
| Low | a | |
The language may have had a distinction ofvowel length, but this is difficult to determine from the extant data.[28]
The Dharug language highlights the strong link between people and place through its clan naming convention. This can be seen through the suffix identifier-gal and-galyan which refer to-man of and-woman of.[29]
Clan names such asBurramuttagal (identifying the people) therefore translate toman of Burramutta - also known as Parramatta (identifying the place those specific people are from);Gadigal (identifying the people),man of Gadi - Sydney within Gadigal Country (identifying the place those specific people are from); and,Kamaygalyan (identifying the people),woman of Kamay - Botany Bay (identifying the place those specific people are from). This people-and-place naming convention within the Dharug language can be seen throughout all of the clans of the Eora Nation.
Another example of the strong link between people and place, but without the suffix, can be seen with the nation name 'Eora' itself, which translates topeople andfrom here orthis place. The name Eora refers collectively to the people of the Sydney region and also translates to the name of the (Greater Sydney) region inhabited by those people.[12]
Examples ofEnglish words borrowed from Dharug are:
… Biyal-Biyal, abbreviated to 'BB', has been used here for the classical language of Port Jackson.PDF
… in that dialect and also in the "Beeal-Beeal" dialect of Botany Bay.