122

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M^r. [Sydney may]
With Compliments
[FJWatson]

[right margin]
Card

MI Á N J I N.
(The aborigines' name for Brisbane. Its origin and meaning).

According to the pioneed, [Tom Petrie], Mianjin was the
aborigines name for the riparian peninsula on which is now
situated the House of Parliament, The University, the Domain, and
the Botanic Gardens....

The name is derived from two words, namely, migan, emaning
a spike, and dhagun meaning place, land or coutry.

In the translation of this compounded word, two peculiarities
of aboriginal speech must be taken into consideration, one
being a consonant which has no representattive in the English
language but is here represented by dh, and which is usually
rencered by translators as d ,t,ch, or j. The other
peculiarity is the aborigines' custom of eliding the letters
g (hard) and k where they occur beetween vowels. Thus migan
becomes mian, and dhagun, with the elision also of the obscure
vowel u, becomes dhan, the compounded word thus becoming
miándhan, or to the English speaking tongue, Miánjan or
miánchan. The name means "place like(or shape of) a spike".

In the pronunciation of the name the letter i is as ee
in the English word meek, the first letter a is obscure and
the last a slightly long. The accent is principally on
the first syllable but both syllables should be distinctly
pronounced.

[FJWatson]