Awabakal (also Awabagal or the Hunter River – Lake Macquarie, often abbreviated HRLM language) is an Australian Aboriginal language that was spoken around Lake Macquarie and Newcastle in New South Wales.

[3] The speaker of Awabakal who taught him about the language was Biraban, the tribal leader.

Threlkeld and Biraban's Specimens of a Dialect of the Aborigines of New South Wales in 1827 was the earliest attempt at exhibiting the structure of an Australian language.

[4] Threlkeld's work was greatly expanded by John Fraser and republished in 1892 as An Australian language as spoken by the Awabakal, the people of Awaba or Lake Macquarie (near Newcastle, New South Wales) being an account of their language, traditions and customs / by L.E.

They can stand as referring terms and are in these cases similar to nouns, like adjectives or intransitive verbs/predicative verb-adjective phrases.

Pronominal enclitics are suffixes which have several functions and can be attached to verbs, descriptors, appositions, interrogatives, negatives and nouns.

The default verbative voice of Awabakal verbs is neutral, i.e., they do not give a sense of active or passive.

There are 3 present tenses, 8 future and 7 past, with various voice, aspect and mood modifications.

[12] Part of the Gospel of Luke was translated into Awabakal in 1892 and below the text reflects the orthography of the prayer in 1892.

The word Koori, a self-referential term used by some Aboriginal people, comes from Awabakal.