Woiwurrung, Taungurung and Boonwurrung are Aboriginal languages of the Kulin nation of Central Victoria. Woiwurrung was spoken by the Woiwurrung and related peoples in the Yarra River basin, Taungurung by the Taungurung people north of the Great Dividing Range in the Goulburn River Valley around Mansfield, Benalla and Heathcote, and Boonwurrung by the six clans which comprised the Boonwurrung people along the coast from the Werribee River, across the Mornington Peninsula, Western Port Bay to Wilsons Promontory. 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.

Related languages

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 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".

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 ngali you and I, but the front was suffixed to wa-, so wa+ngal combines to form wangal below. In Kulin languages there is no grammatical gender.

Other Woiwurrung vocabulary

Number and sign system

A numbering system was used when Wurundjeri clans sent out messengers to advise neighbouring clans of upcoming events, such as a ceremony, corroboree, a challenge to fight or Marn grook 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

Birds

Aquatic animals

Insects