Boonwurrung language
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Geographic distribution
Boonwurrung was spoken by six clans along the coast from the Werribee River, across the Mornington Peninsula, Western Port Bay to Wilsons Promontory.
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Related languages
Boonwurrung is closely related to the Woiwurrung language, with which it shares 93% of its vocabulary, and to a lesser degree with Taungurung spoken north of the Great Dividing Range in the area of the Goulburn River, 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 in the north, to Wilsons Promontory 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".
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: Minamberang
- Peppermint Tree: Wiyal
- Sarsaparilla: Wadimalin
- She-oak: Tur-run
- Wattle: Garron
- Woolly Tea-tree: Wulep
- Yellow Box: Dhagurn
- Yam Daisy: Murnong
Birds
- Black Cockatoo: Yanggai
- Black Duck: Toolum
- Black Swan: Gunuwarra
- Emu: Barraimal
- Ibis: Baibadjerruk
- Magpie lark: Dit-dit
- Nankeen Kestrel: Gawarn
- Pelican: Wadjil
- Quail: Tre-bin
- Water Fowl: Kor-rung-un-un
Aquatic animals
- Blackfish: Duat
- Cockle: Mur-yoke
- Eel: Yuk / Ilk
- Flathead: Dalum
- Frog: Ngarrert
- Mussel: Mur-bone
- Oyster: U.yoke
- Periwinkle: Pid-de-ron
- Shark: Darrak