Garrawa

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An Indigenous Australian people living in the Gulf region of the Northern Territory and Queensland ; the traditional language spoken by that community
2. A group of Aboriginal Australians from the savanna country of the Gulf of Carpentaria ; the Indigenous tongue their members have historically spoken
3. The Indigenous people of the Northern Territory and Queensland border region ; the endangered Australian Aboriginal language associated with them

Etymology: "Garrawa" is a spelling of the name of an Aboriginal Australian people of the Gulf country in the Northern Territory and Queensland, more often written "Garawa." The name belongs to the people and to their language, which is traditionally spoken in the region around the Robinson and McArthur river systems. It was given to them by outsiders, as is common with Aboriginal group names, and the name was used in colonial and later ethnographic records before the community's own usage was widely recorded. The word is best understood as a proper noun whose history is tied to the documentation of the people and language rather than to a dictionary word with a traceable origin in English.