Barrawao seeks to bring about an understanding of the deep connection between Language and Country in an embodied and experiential manner.
The initial idea for this project was to showcase all languages of Australia on a map the user could fly over in VR. After even early discussions among the project team, and with external advisors, it quickly became clear that the relationship of language to Country and the necessary consultation protocols required a scaling down of the project. For a while, we considered representing the whole of NSW, but again, realised this needed to scale back further; that a re-creation of Country and language in a virtual world needs to happen through a slow process of co-design together with the appropriate Knowledge Holders, after spending time walking on and listening to Country, lest it become a re-colonisation of land, culture and language by displaying collected languages as artifacts and squeezing the landscape into a shape determined by technology and colonial ideas of the map.
So we refocused on Sydney. Sydney is complicated, linguistically. As Danièle Hromek states in her PhD thesis - “The land Sydney sits upon is home to a number of Aboriginal groups, and has long been a destination and a space of movement as peoples from the north, west and south travel through the area staying with kin on the way. These groups have differing names and languages, which originated from oral traditions with multiple dialects. Colonisers have not always well understood Aboriginal ways of forming words, thus there are many ways of saying and spelling them.” We attempt to retain this sense of complexity in the VR, by including both D’harawal and Darug words in a shared space, rather than drawing boundaries on the land, and by representing words in their spellings from the various sources rather than standardising them.
We see this VR experience as the start of a project, not the end. If you are a language Knowledge Holder who would like to have your knowledge included, we would love to talk to you about how we could work together to bring your words and perspectives into the project.
Barrawao is co-designed in a collaboration between Andrew Burrell (Lecturer, Visual Communications, UTS), Shannon Foster (D’harawal Sydney Saltwater Knowledge Keeper), Rachel Hendery (Linguist, Western Sydney University), Danièle Hromek (Budawang/ Yuin, Designer and Researcher), and Louisa King (Lecturer, School of Architecture, UTS).
We would like to thank Professor Jaky Troy for her time in conversation with us when the project was first forming and highlighting possible directions for the project as well initial encouragement to move forward with it. We would also like to thank Marcus Hughes for his invaluable insight and constructive criticism that informed a shift in scope and final realisation of what the project would become.
A very special thank you to Uncle Greg Simms for allowing us to include his voice and for sharing his knowledge of both Language and Country. Uncle Greg Simms is an Elder with ancestral ties to the Gundungurra people of the Blue Mountains and the Gadigal people of the Darug nation.
Shannon Foster, spoken in D’harawal
Wadeayeo Galumban
Ngeeyinee bulima nandiritah
Didjariguru guwanayio’miya
Welcome to Spirit Country
May you always see the beauty of this earth
We thank you for remembering our Ancestors
Uncle Greg Simms, spoken in Darug
Worimi mittigar gurrum burruk Tiati murra Daruga pemel koi murra ya pemel ngalaringi bubbuna ban nye yemna wurru nang nye dice gai dyi ya nangami dyarralang daruga ngalaringi tiati ngalaringi nangami gai guy a willy angara gu-nu-gal nu-nu-gal da la-loey moogoo cot-ballie nangami dice la-loey gnia tarimi gu-nu-gal tiati ngalaringi ya daruga eorah mittigar gurrung burruk gneene da daruga pemel didgeree gore.
This is Darug lands. It is the land of our ancestors. Their spirits still walk among us. Spirits that have been here since the dreaming. Darug language has been passed down from generation to generation to continue an unbroken culture that has extended for thousands of years. In the language of the Darug people, we welcome you to Darug lands. Thank you.
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Words from the Darug language |
||
| garraway | sulfur crested cockatoo | Troy 1994* |
| mulgoa | swan | Uncle Greg Simms |
| wumbat | wombat | Troy 1994 |
| bunda | hawk | Troy 1994 |
| wirambi | bat | Troy 1994 |
| barrugin | echidna | Troy 1994 |
| buru | kangaroo | Uncle Greg Simms |
| birrung | stars | Troy 1994 |
| nura | country or place | Troy 1994 |
| worimi | hello | Uncle Greg Simms |
| midjiga | friend | Uncle Greg Simms |
| marrang | sand or beach | Troy 1994 |
| eora | people | Uncle Greg Simms |
|
Words from the Dhurga language |
||
| djinta | the first sunlight shining through the dew in the morning | Hromek, p.c. |
| nura | country or place | Hromek, p.c. |
|
Words from the D’harawal language |
||
| guggugarra | kookaburra | Andrews et al, 2007 |
| wugan | raven | Andrews et al, 2007 |
| beela | black cockatoo | Andrews et al, 2007 |
| binit | tawny frogmouth | Andrews et al, 2007 |
| guwali (goowallee) | cormorant | Andrews et al, 2007 |
| ngoonungi | flying fox | Andrews et al, 2007 |
| grungrok | green and gold bellfrog | Andrews et al, 2007 |
| gugad | frog | Andrews et al, 2007 |
| mungari | birdsong | Andrews et al, 2007 |
| barrawao | to fly/to make haste | Andrews et al, 2007 |
| galamban | home / spirit country | Aunty Fances Bodkin |
| garigalo | salt water | Aunty Fances Bodkin |
| garrayura | sky | Andrews et al, 2007 |
| garrigarang | sea/ocean | Andrews et al, 2007 |
| garuma | saltwater fish (black bream) | Andrews et al, 2007 |
| gawura | whale | Andrews et al, 2007 |
| widud | sand or beach | Andrews et al, 2007 |
| bulima | spirit land | Andrews et al, 2007 |
*The spelling of the words in Troy (1994) is an attempt to standardise/reconstruct across multiple sources, including colonial lists from 1790 onwards, and later word lists from 1900-1988. Sometimes common usage by community members today is different from the earlier sources, e.g. mulgoa for ‘black swan’ instead of mulgo from the sources in the 1980s and mulgu from Troy (1994). Languages are constantly changing, even when there has not been a break in transmission, and these kinds of discrepancies might reflect language change, perhaps during the re-learning process, or long-standing dialect differences.
References
Andrews, Gavin, Frances Bodkin, and Gawaian Bodkin-Andrews. 2007. Dictionary of the D’harawal Language (with grammatical notes). Electronic version available at https://dharawalstories.com/dharawal-dictionary/ This is commonly known as “Aunty Fran’s dictionary”.
Troy, Jakelin. 1994. The Sydney Language. AIATSIS: Canberra.
Reimagined and sung by Shannon Foster, in D’harawal
gawura gudahgah
nangirri dahli
dulumah, dulumah
d’harawal kai’mia
ngahmuru yuolee
bohdahlah, bohdahlah
Whale baby sleep and come this way. The people and their warrior will guide you and protect you to the safe place for children.
Where possible, sounds in the project were recorded on Country by the project team. Barrawao is in continuous development, so as we make more recordings we will replace those below. Where possible, the sounds we have sourced below were recorded in the local environment represented in Barrawao