Wandan: First Language Collections Portal

Trove is the national search engine through which people can explore the amazing collections held by Australian libraries, universities, museums, galleries and archives. It’s free and available online all day, every day.

However, searching for old documents that contain Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages can be difficult. The different spellings often cause problems for people researching their languages as historical spellings do not often match those accepted today. For example, AIATSIS's language database, Austlang, lists 51 different spellings for Gamilaraay.

To help make it easier for community members to find relevant language resources in our major collections, First Languages Australia has developed Wandan, a search tool that links the various historical spellings. Wandan allows you to select which historical spellings, or possibly related languages, you wish to include in your search.

The title 'Wandan' was provided by the Irra Wangga Language Centre. 'Wandan' rhymes with 'London' and is a search command in Wajarri, a language of the Mid West Region of Western Australia.

Artwork
‘Winnam’ (2014)
by Megan Cope.