Talk:Peregian Springs, Queensland

Etymology of Peregian
Ridley (1875, 65) gives the form ŋuruin for 'emu' in Kabi-kabi/Dippil; nearby Wakawaka/Duunidjawu has ŋuwi (Kite 2004, 44). As far as I'm aware loans with /ŋ/ to /p/ do not occur regularly in English, and I wonder if there may be a better candidate -- I am by no means an expert on (languages of) the area.

References Kite, Suzanne and Stephen Wurm 2004 The Duuŋidjawu language of southeast Queensland: grammar, texts and vocabulary Ridley, William 1875 Kámilarói, and other Australian languages, second edition, revised and enlarged by the author, with comparative tables of words from twenty Australian languages, and songs, traditions, laws and customs of The Australian race
 * I know little about Indigeneous languages but I do know that British settlers didn't know much about them either, so there are a lot of places with non-English names that people assume are Indigenous but a) may not be Indigenous at all, b) come from an Indigenous language not from that area (an Indigenous word the British settler may have learned elsewhere, e.g. Biloela in Queensland means cockatoo but apparently that's the case in the Eora language of Sydney, or c) come from a local Indigenous language but was so mangled when attempting to write it down in our alphabet that the original Indigenous word cannot be determined. I have located two sources, which suggest "emu" or "mangrove seeds" as the meaning. I think the reason "emu" is the favoured theory is because Mount Peregian (which is probably the earliest-named thing with the Peregian name) was also known as Emu Mountain (see this 1974 map (look halfway on the coast between Coolum Beach and Peregian Beach and just go a bit inland and see the mountain with both names). But while we can say that Mount Peregian was also known as Emu Mountain with certainty (see the map), it doesn't follow that Peregian means emu in either the local or non-local Indigenous language. I've added the two meanings and the mountain naming to this article and to the Peregian Beach, Queensland article with the relevant citations, but I personally think that a lot of these Indigenous "translation" of place names are pretty dubious for the reasons above. I note that the origins of non-Indigenous places names are often dubious too, e.g. the place is supposedly named after a "pioneer" who it turns out hadn't actually arrived in the district when that place name was already in use (perhaps he sent a letter in advance, "arriving some time in the next decade or two, please name it after me in anticipation"). With most place names, I genuinely believe nobody really knows the reason for the name. But people always want to know the meaning behind a place name and, in the absence of any real facts, any old story seems to quickly fill that void. Kerry (talk) 08:40, 30 April 2021 (UTC)