Special section: Western Australian Aboriginal history: Kooral Dwonk-katitjiny (listening to the past): Aboriginal language, songs and history in south-western Australia
Noongar, the Aboriginal peoples of south-west Australia, have observed and interacted with Europeans since before the dawn of the nineteenth century. Historians have long relied on expedition journals and the diaries of colonists for constructing interpretations of south-west Australian frontier history. More recent work in this area emphasises oral histories and the perspectives of contemporary Noongar. Focusing on the region know today as the City of Albany in Western Australia, Tiffany Shellam has briefly considered Noongar language as a means by which to determine something of the motivations of certain Aboriginal people engaged in early contact with the British and French. Clearly, any interpretation of what people may have been thinking can be only enhanced when underpinned by an understanding of how they use language. Indeed, a language such as Noongar, which carries very little evidence of the inclusion of other languages, could be considered to 'represent the distillation of the thoughts and communication of a people over their entire history'.