Isabella (nee Dawson) Taylor (1842 – 1929) grew up in the company of the Aboriginal people of Western Victoria. She was a life long student of their languages and customs. She penned the following remarkable letter to the editor of The Australasian newspaper on 9th March, 1870. She follows a passionate support of the Aboriginal people with a detailed listing of Aboriginal words and expressions with their English equivalents. It was a brave move, particularly for a woman, when support for Aboriginal people was far from popular. When she died in 1929,  Isabella was probably one of the last fluent speakers of  western Victorian Aboriginal languages  – click here to view a typed transcript of Isabella Park Dawson’s letter, 1870.

Dr Ian Clark has generously provided us with his listing of Djargurd wurrung place names – excerpt from Ian D. Clark, 2021, Ethnohistory of the Djargurd wurrung people of Camperdown, Kindle Direct Publishing, pp. 16-36.

Dawson Scrapbook – Searchable PDF Volume 1/7 – Examples shown below – 

Click here to view Volume 1

*Search for ‘language’ and on Page 27 & 28 you can discover information about local Aboriginal Language that Isabella Dawson collected. Examples are pictured below. We are working towards expanding the resources available.