Central Western Plains: Title page and map

In the twentieth century, recording Australian languages became more scholarly. Aboriginal people often supported these activities but weren’t always credited by researchers. When writing his PhD on ‘three native languages’ in the 1950s, Ian Hutchison Sim gathered language from published sources and also interviewed language custodians at Goodooga, crediting Willie Willis, Mrs G Rose and Mr G Field at Goodooga.

In the 1950s I worked in the Goodooga area in north western NSW. There, I was privileged to know some older Aboriginal people and to learn from them something of their language and culture. Part of the material which I gathered was eventually written up as a manuscript which was given to the Mitchell Library in 1960.

• Ian Sim, in Yuwaalayaay: The Language of the Narran River, edited by John Giacon, Walgett, 1998