The Aboriginal origins of the word koala, the marsupial often incorrectly called a bear
The animal’s scientific name includes the Latin word cinerus, or ‘ash-coloured’, which has new poignancy given how many have died in Australia’s bush fires
The word “koala” comes most likely from Darug. Darug and Eora are the inland and coastal dialects, or all dialects collectively, of the Sydney language, traditionally spoken by Darug and Eora Australian Aborigines in the Sydney area before European settlement. It is now a reawakening language – dormant but being revitalised.
As the first Aboriginal language heard by European colonisers arriving at Sydney Cove, in 1788, Darug gave English many of its earliest Australian borrowings, especially names for places, flora and fauna. The koala in Darug is “gula” or “gulamany”; related words include “kula” from Georges River to Sydney’s south and west, and “kulla” among southeastern Queensland’s Dippil peoples.
Several popular sources have suggested this means “no drink”, based on the once-held belief that, since koalas did not descend often from trees, they could survive without water, thanks to a diet of eucalyptus leaves with a high water content. However, scholarly analysis finds this association tenuous.
Early writings of Australian experiences – including John Price’s 1798 diary with the first written reference to a “cullawine”, an 1803 Sydney Gazette article about a live capture, 1813’s History of New South Wales and Scottish naval surgeon Peter Cunningham’s Two Years in New South Wales (1827) – described the “koolah” or “coola”.
The modification of the vowel to “oa” at some point was probably in error. But it was so spelt in British surgeon Everard Home’s 1808 report in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London and in Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species (1872), and this spelling has remained.
These early descriptions suggested resemblances or relations to wombats, sloths and bears. Given early settlers’ greater familiarity with bears, the (incorrect) name “koala bear” has been commonly used, especially outside Australia, for example, in 19th-century British wildlife photographer Cherry Kearton’s I Visit the Antipodes.
The koala’s scientific genus name, Phascolarctos, given in 1816, reflects this colonial mindset of using the relatable, albeit sometimes misplaced, knowledge of the day: Phascolarctos is composed of the Greek phaskolos (“pouch”) and arktos (“bear”).
In today’s climate, it is perhaps the koala’s specific epithet cinereus, from Latin “ash coloured”, and its Darug origins that are particularly poignant.
