By Corey Everitt
The opening of Officer’s new park is facing a slight hiccup as the council is likely to ditch the official name ‘Torongo’ because new research has found the word to be a mispronunciation.
In the next Cardinia Shire Council meeting on Monday 16 December, councillors will consider a motion to suspend the naming of Officer District Park to Torongo Park and initiate another consultation period to determine a new name.
The motion included in the agenda, published this week, says the council was informed by the Bunurong Land Council Aboriginal Corporation (BLCAC) that ‘Torongo’ is not accurate to the word ‘heart’ in Boonwurrung language.
This was the presumption when the council adopted the name for the park in August, this revelation was made by ‘more rigorous’ research of the language conducted by BLCAC which has made ‘Torongo’ ‘no longer an appropriate name’ for the park.
BLCAC’s research determined that ‘heart’ is properly spelled ‘durru’ (DOO-roo with the ‘r’ rolled) in Boonwurrung.
“As ‘Torongo’ is not an accurate word for ‘heart’ in Boonwurrung language, and ‘durru’ was not the name voted on and chosen by the community, it is recommended that Council not proceed with the name ‘Torongo’ and instead, commit to finding a more appropriate name moving forward,” the motion states.
If the motion is passed, the park will return to its interim name of ‘Officer District Park’ until a new name is chosen.
On the council website, the park is set to open this month.
Stage 1 of the project began last year for the park purposed to serve on a regional level for the growing suburb of Officer and beyond.
During the naming in August, the council also resolved to segment a section of the park for dogs off-leash under the name of ‘Torongo Park’.
As this is submitted to the State Government under the Domestic Animals Act and expected to be published to the Government Gazette on 19 December, presumably around when the park will be open, the motion proposes this order not be withdrawn for it being ‘impractical’ at this late stage and ‘undesirable’ for the park to not have an off-leash area.
It is proposed the council update the order once a new name is determined.
The motion recites the statement made by BLCAC to the council on the matter.
It explains that new historical sources are becoming available to decipher Boonwurrung away from more established pronunciations.
“This word (Torongo) is taken directly from the journals of William Thomas, an English Protector of Aborigines during the colonization of Melbourne,” the statement said.
“As Thomas was a monolingual English speaker, he was not able to accurately hear or distinguish the sounds of Boonwurrung.
“For this reason, when reconstructing Boonwurrung language today, we need to compare across multiple sources and what we know about Boonwurrung language to produce an accurate form.
“These sources are also still becoming available to us as we continue to research and discover records in disparate locations around the world. As these records come to light it allows us to more accurately rebuild a language devastatingly lost to colonialism.”
BLCAC acknowledged the inconvenience in the process for Officer District Park but stated the importance of accuracy in the ongoing efforts to recover the language.
“We are now proud to say that BLCAC has implemented a much more rigorous and effective standard for researching Boonwurrung language, which will be instrumental in reawakening language in community,” the statement said.
“Having consistency in the way the language is written is very important for helping Bunurong people reconnect and relearn language.”
