The Chinese Language

• Chinese is spoken by over a billion people and consists of several mutually unintelligible regional groups.
• Mandarin is the most widely spoken Chinese dialect, with about 850 million speakers.
• The Chinese writing system is one of the oldest and most complex in the world.

About Blacktown

Blacktown is a suburb in the City of Blacktown, in Western Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Blacktown is located 34 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district and is the administrative centre of the local government area of City of Blacktown. Blacktown is the largest of any suburb or township in New South Wales and is one of the most multicultural places in Sydney.

Prior to the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788, Blacktown was inhabited by different groups of the Darug people including the Warmuli, based around what is now Prospect, and their neighbours the Gomerigal from the South Creek area and the Wawarawarry from the Eastern Creek area. It is estimated that fifty to ninety percent of the Darug died of smallpox and other introduced diseases within a few years of the British arrival.

Governor Arthur Phillip began granting land in the area to white settlers in 1791, a process that was reversed slightly in 1819 when Governor Lachlan Macquarie granted land to two indigenous men, Colebee and Nurragingy. A few years later in 1823, the Native Institution (a school for Aboriginal children) was moved from Parramatta to the site where Richmond Road meets Rooty Hill Road North (this intersection is now in the suburbs of Oakhurst and Dean Park). Although the institution closed in 1833, the road heading out to it became known as the Black Town Road. In 1860 the Railway Department gave the name of Black Town Road Station to the railway station at the junction of the railway and the Black Town Road, with the name shortening to Blacktown by 1862.

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