Many places around the City had Aboriginal names. Some of these names continued to be used by the Europeans, though many were jettisoned in favour of English naming. Sometimes the new arrivals introduced a new Aboriginal name while ignoring the traditional one. For example, the name 'Bennelong Point' was given to the place the indigenous people called 'Tubowgule.'

The glossary is divided into three sections:

Sydney places - places around Sydney Harbour via an interactive map

Aboriginal words - for some common nouns

Acronyms - decodes the abbreviations used for many Aboriginal organisations' names



 

Because the Aboriginal people did not have a written tradition, there are a number of different spellings that have been recorded over the past 200 years. Many of the spellings in this glossary have been taken from Jakelin Troy's "The Sydney Language" in the Macquarie Dictionary of Aboriginal Words (1994).

Click on this interactive map of Sydney Harbour to view indigenous place namings.