Third State of Origin Rugby League match, 7 July

In the light of the debate about racism in sport, the NSWRL obviously decided to make some kind of reconciliatory statement by having the National Anthem sung in both an indigenous language as well as English before the game. The first verse was sung in what was announced as the Eora language by Corey Kirk, a 19 year old Aboriginal singer accompanied by digeridoo and boomerang clap sticks and then followed by an un-named tenor backed by a childrens choir and a different prerecorded backing track. Ms Kirk suffered from a thin quavery little voice, but I am sure there were some nerves in there as well. The tenor was, at best, bland and I haven't even been able to find out who he was. We could only manage a 5.

What has been more interesting than the performance itself has been the flurry of controversy about what language the first verse was actually sung in. The words were translated by Richard Green, a Darug man who apparently rejects the idea of an Eora language at all. A bit a googling quickly establishes that there is little agreement about what languages existed in pre-white settlement days or where the boundaries might be between them. The Eora people lived on the southern side of Port Jackson, out to around Balmain and south to the Cooks River. It seems likely that they were part of a larger grouping, the Gadigal, who may or may not have been within the Darug language group. The Darug area extended out from Parramatta westward to the Nepean River and no-one is really sure how different the language of the people around Sydney Cove was to those further west or even across on the northern side of the harbour. I would be interested to know how Green translated "girt by sea".