Planning Minister Nick Champion is exercising his powers under the Geographical Names Act to have six Mount Gambier tourist drawcards assigned an Indigenous name.

He has invited public comment on the proposal which had to be lodged with the Surveyor-General by last week.

If the State Government proposal is endorsed, the Mount Gambier region will take on their original Bunganditj terms, alongside the current European names dating back to colonisation.

Under the proposal, the Blue Lake will also carry the name Warwar whilst the Cave Garden will also be known as Thugi.

The other dual name proposals for the Blue Lake city are for the Umpherston Sinkhole (Balumbul), Leg of Mutton Lake (Yatton Loo), Browne Lake (Kroweratwari) and Valley Lake (Ketla Malpi).

Burrandies Aboriginal Corporation worked with the Bunganditj Language Reclamation Committee (BLRC) to decide the correct names for each location

The BLRC is a group of Boandik community members who have worked towards revitalising the Bunganditj language, spoken in the region of the South East, and ensuring words and phrases used follow the correct grammar structures, as written in archival resources.

The initial process started between Mount Gambier City Council and Burrandies Aboriginal Corporation chief executive officer Robyn Campbell.

Burrandies Aboriginal Corporation language coordinator Tara Bonney then joined the process at the start of May last year to help coordinate the final pronunciation of the place names.

During the initial part of the process, archival resources were accessed to ascertain the correct place names and spellings.

“The location names have always been recorded, they’re one of the things that we know,” Ms Bonney said.

“Location names because they’re generally culturally significant, they’re recorded.”

Ms Bonney said part of her job was to break the words up into their base sounds to aid with correct pronunciation.

This work was based upon the pronunciation guides given in the Bunganditj Dictionary.

“Part of my role is just breaking it into phonetics, so … how you would say each sound, and then I also did some recordings for council as well, so they have got access to that,” she said.

“My role was really just to make sure that when you’re looking at the signs, (the term is) broken up.

“It was difficult because we have a couple of really unique sounds in Bunganditj which do not really translate to English.”

Burrandies Aboriginal Corporation and the BLRC have been involved in revitalising the Bunganditj language for over a decade now.

This has not been an easy process, as the language is quite different to other South Australian languages and is more closely related to the western Victorian language structures, but the fruits of their love and labour are beginning to emerge in the public domain.

“Some other languages that get revitalised, they have recordings of the speakers; we did not have access to any of that,” Ms Bonney said.

“We did not have any fluent speakers of the language alive and so basically, basing everything off of those archival resources, how they were phonetically sounded out and then also just using connections with the local languages around.”

Ms Bonney said Australian linguist Professor Barry Blake was a big contributor to the project.

“Without his work we really would not have anything to base our dictionary or our learning on,” she said.

“These linguists, they are really passionate.

“He is still someone that we go to if we have got questions about the language.”

Ms Bonney said if the process was approved then discussions would be had about how to present it to the public.

“What we have pushed for is the Bunganditj word to be first followed by the English version,” she said.

“When we do any signage anywhere that’s what we ask because we want to really highlight that this is the first language of this area and really just bring it to people’s attention.

“Just make it a focus as well because when it’s bigger and first that’s what your eyes are drawn to.

“I’m really excited about it though because I think it’s going to be a conversation starter.”