‘Pretty offensive’: Elder slams new uni over Kaurna naming
An Aboriginal Elder says his community was not consulted about Adelaide University’s Kaurna name, while a Kaurna language expert says the name makes no grammatical sense.
Adelaide University announced earlier this month that it would be known as ‘Tirkangkaku’, which it said means “place of learning”, alongside its English name, becoming the first university in Australia to have an Aboriginal name enshrined in its founding act.
In a joint statement, Adelaide University co-vice-chancellors, professors David Lloyd and Peter Høj, said: “Tirkangkaku represents a convergence of where people, communities and disciplines will meet in two-way knowledge exchange and step forward together through excellence and equity with a deep commitment to togetherness and an intertwined future.”
The new university, formed via the merger of the universities of Adelaide and South Australia, said the name was proposed by senior Kaurna Elder Dr Uncle Lewis Yarlupurka O’Brien AO in consultation with Aboriginal staff and the University of South Australia’s Purkarninthi Elders in Residence.
The university said that cultural consent was received from Kaurna Warra Karrpanthi language committee and the name was endorsed by the Adelaide University Transition Council.
But, in a public statement dated July 18, another Kaurna language group, Kaurna Warra Pintyanthi (KWP), raised concerns Adelaide University’s Kaurna name was grammatically incorrect, and the Kaurna community had not been consulted.
Kaurna Warra Pintyanthi is hosted by the University of Adelaide and was created in 2002 as an informal committee by a group of Kaurna people, teachers and language enthusiasts involved in the reclamation and teaching of the Kaurna language, while Kaurna Warra Karrpanthi was established in 2013 as a sister language committee with formal legal standing.
“Kaurna Warra Pintyanthi (KWP) would like to state that we had not been consulted in the process of this generally welcomed step of acknowledging the Kaurna People by the AU,” the public statement said.
KWP said ‘Tirkangkaku’ literally translates as “learning-place’s” or “of learning-place”, without any clear reason why there is a possessive, adding that the issue likely stems from a literal translation of “place of learning” from English to Kaurna.
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KWP said there is no single word for “place” in the Kaurna language and the notion of place is encoded in the suffix “-ngka”, meaning the added suffix “-ku” is ungrammatical and superfluous.
KWP said it was not involved in the process of choosing a name and heard about it through public announcements, but offered Adelaide University assistance in choosing an appropriate Kaurna name.
Kaurna Elder and traditional owner Tim Agius told InDaily that Adelaide University has no right to a Kaurna name until it acknowledges past wrongs committed by the University of Adelaide through a process of truth-telling.
“The University of Adelaide itself has a chequered past with Kaurna ancestors and therefore does not deserve the right to have a Kaurna name until they have disclosed what that past consists of, and that they perpetuated atrocities against Kaurna people,” he said.
In February 2002, the University of Adelaide issued a public apology for experiments conducted by some of its researchers on Aboriginal people in the 1920s and 1930s, as documented in Dr Warwick Anderson’s book, The Cultivation of Whiteness: Science, Health and Racial Destiny in Australia.
“Adelaide University acknowledges that many of the tests and experiments carried out on Aboriginal people in South Australia in the name of science in the 1920s and 1930s were degrading and, in some cases, barbarous,” said then vice-chancellor, Professor Cliff Blake.
“On behalf of the University community, I express my deep sorrow for what happened. I apologise to the descendants of all those who were subjected to this treatment and to their communities.”
Agius said Adelaide University did not follow correct cultural protocol when choosing a Kaurna name, including whether the community supported the provision of a Kaurna name for the new university.
“I’m a Kaurna elder, and at no stage was I consulted about what the university should have been named, or if it should have been proposed or even received,” he said.
Agius said he found it “pretty offensive” considering the Kaurna community has been attempting to engage with the university since May 2025.
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“The university has completely ignored its own staff that were employed by Karra Warra Pintyanthi, they didn’t even engage them, they didn’t let them know what was being proposed, they didn’t even check with their own academic linguists to check that the name itself was appropriate,” said Agius.
“And so, no consultation has been taken with anyone else except that one family group.”
Agius said only the Kaurna people collectively can decide what happens to their language.
“Given that the language belongs to all Kaurna people collectively, Kaurna people are the only ones that have cultural authority to decide who they give the language program to and what name is allocated to an object or an agency,” he said.
Meanwhile, linguist Rob Amery, who is a visiting associate professor at the University of Adelaide and has been researching the Kaurna language since 1989, agreed that the name was not grammatically correct and said translation from English to Kaurna is a complex process.
Amery said he warned the university about the dangers of choosing a dual name and that there are young Kaurna people with years of experience in translation who were not consulted.
“Translation is not a simple thing, particularly when we’re looking at languages as different as Kaurna and English. It’s not just a matter of looking up a word and finding a counterpart in the dictionary,” Amery told InDaily.
“You would think that if a university should be about rigorous research excellence, if they have a linguistics department, if they have a specialisation in Kaurna linguistics that’s been there for decades, wouldn’t you think they would at least check and consult with that unit,” he said.
Amery said he was also concerned about the future of the Kaurna language at the new Adelaide University and that he approached co-vice-chancellors Høj and Lloyd about this in May 2024, but to little avail.
Asked how Adelaide University should respond to concerns raised, Agius said the university firstly “needs to recognise that they have made a significant mistake”.
“They need to acknowledge their history. They need to acknowledge that broader engagement and consultation should have taken place with the Kaurna people about the proposal to give the university a name, and it should have been endorsed by Kaurna traditional owners,” he said.
An Adelaide University spokesperson reiterated that its Kaurna name, ‘Tirkangkaku’, was proposed by senior Kaurna Elder Dr Uncle Lewis Yarlupurka O’Brien AO in consultation with the University of South Australia’s Purkarninthi Elders in Residence.
“On application from the Adelaide University Transition Council, cultural consent was formally provided by Kaurna Warra Karrpanthi (KWK), a Kaurna community organisation dedicated to Kaurna language revitalisation,” the spokesperson said.
“The shared commitment of the foundation universities to appropriately embed Aboriginal knowledges into curriculum, to provide greater educational pathways and employment opportunities, and to actively break the cycles of disadvantage will be honoured at Adelaide University as we seek to become the university of choice for Aboriginal peoples.
“Adelaide University will continue to have a strong relationship with Kaurna peoples and will continue to pursue research on language recovery, including through developing a Kaurna language major.”
