Vignette 142: Documenting Ngarrindjeri vocabulary

After colonisation, parts of South Australia were targeted by missionaries as new areas for religious conversion and advancement. Reverend Eduard Heinrich August Meyer was the first missionary to stay on Ngarrindjeri Country, arriving in South Australia in 1840. He was from the Evangelical Lutheran Mission Society in Dresden, Germany, and remained in Encounter Bay until 1848. He established a school in this area, and taught and preached his religious beliefs in the local languages.

Throughout his time on Ngarrindjeri Country, Meyer recorded the dialects and languages that the Ngarrindjeri people shared with him. In 1843, he released a book entitled Vocabulary of the Language Spoken by the Aborigines of the Southern and Eastern Portions of the Settled Districts of South Australia.

A copy of this text is held in the University Library archives collection. This book stands as a testament to the resilience of the Ngarrindjeri people over two centuries of colonisation, and captures an oral language that has existed for tens of thousands of years.

The University of Adelaide: 150 Years of Making History.  Preserving a legacy.  p.190