SOME AUSTRALIA WORDS.

New Zealand Times, Volume LVIII, Issue 2746, 18 February 1896, Page 4

SOME AUSTRALIA WORDS.

Professor Morris lectured recently on the origin of some Australian words. Among them he mentioned “kangaroo” (which was Cook’.; interpretation of an aboriginal expression not now' recognisable in any black vocabulary), “ larrikin ” (the origin of which dates back, in spite of the doubts of Professor Morris, to a paragraph written in the Argus hy Mr W. L. O’Hoa, the police reporter, who caught the word from Sergeant Dalton), “ laughing-jackass,” Ac. Here are some paragraphs from tho professor’s lecture:— In tho prize ode, sung at tho opening of the Melbourne Centennial Exhibition (ISS8). the author, the Rev William Allen, in a description of Australia before tho coming of tho colonist, had the line

Where the warrigal whimpered and neighed. This line was attacked, not on the ground that in those days there were no horses in Australia, wild or tame, but that the warrigal was a dog, and not a horso. In some parts it is certainly used for a horse. Mr Gilbert Parker, that observant Canadian who, since leaving Australia, has made forward strides, uses it frequently in “ Round the Compass,” and puts in his short glossary, “ wild dog, _ wild horse ; anything aboriginal.” Here is a quotation from him: “ Six wild horses —warrigals or bromines, as they are called —have been driven down, corailed and caught. They have fed on the leaves of the myall and stray bits of saltbush. After a time they are got within the traces. They are all young, and they look not so had ’■ (p. 41). In the very paper in which Mr Allen was scoffed at,' two years later this came in a story; “ Mike’ll fret himself to death in a stable, and maybe kill the groom. Mike’s a warrigal, he is.” There is no doubt that wild dog is the commoner meaning of the word; and in the earliest vocabularies the " wild ”is omitted. Hunter has Warregal, a large dog; and Collins Wor-re-gal, Dog. But in Bunco’s “Language of Aborigines of Victoria” (1859) the word appears twice: “A wild savage—worragul” (n.), and “Ferocious, savage, wild, warragul” (a.dj.). It is uncertain whether dog or wild is the earlier idea ,• it was transferred from one to the other, then extended to the horse, to wild natives, in hush slang to a worthless man; and on the authority of , the “ Colonial Reformer" (p. 68) there is even “ a real good, wholesome cabbage—warrigal cabbage, tho shepherds call it.” Brumby is a synonym used by Mr Parker. As to its origin, thoro is some doubt. Tho word is much used in Queensland and at the hack of New South Wales for a wild horso. Is it of English or of Australian origin ? One writes to mo that tho horse was “so called after a mighty hunter,” who boro the name so highly honoured in Melbourne. For this conjecture not a vestige of evidence was offered. Another tells me that he believes it is convict slang, and that it was in uso in Victoria 40 years ago. But how did it come to be slang? In one of Curr’s vocabularies (vol. iii., p. 259) it is given as a native plural. Can no man tell ? Hera it may be worth while to remark on tho absurdity of trying to connect the aboriginal words with classical or with English words. In at least half-a-dozen books on Australia tho word gin for a woman is derived, serious or playfully, from the Greek. Several of my informants have assured mo that gin is not Australian. In “Australian Discovery,” by S. Bennett, of Sydney, 1865 (p. 250): “Gin or gun, a woman, G reek, and derivative words in English, as generate, generation and the like.” The form gun looks as if it had been altered to meet the Greek form, and of course generate is not derived from this term, though it may he a distant relative. In Collins’ Vocabulary, 1798, occurs “din, a woman.” If the spelling djin had been adopted, as it well might have been, to express the native sound, where would the Greek theory have been P But Mr Bennett has a still more remarkable contribution to philological lore.

“ Hielaman, a shield Saxon hcilan English helm or helmet (a little shield for the head),” In no dictionary can I find the Saxon hoilan, and charitably suspect a misprint. The English helmet has no connection with a shield. And there is no doubt that the U is an English cockney addition to the aboriginal word. In Hunter’s Vocabulary the form is elimang; in Collins’ e-loe-mong. It would need an ingenious fancy to connect this with helm. There is, indeed, a connection with English of a more genuine sort, where a word has passed as aboriginal though it is really English disguised. Waddy, for instance, has a very aboriginal look, but it is simply the English word wood mispronounced by native lips. So also yabber is jabber. As noted before, picaninny is generally thought aboriginal. It is really West Indian, being said to come from Cuba, and to mean small. It its old home it was used for a little black child. When the English sailors and settlers first saw black children in Australia, some of them used this name, which was counted by the aborigines as pure English, but on its later use it was frequently regarded as an aboriginal word. How do you spell tea-tree ? Lot us hope as you spell your afternoon ten. It is quite true that in newspapers and elsewhere you will generally find fi —a spelling that leads 'to confusion, for there is a ti. Cordyline , defined as “ a small tree, of the lily family, common to the Pacific Islands. Its thick, fleshy loots are baked and eaten by the natives, and also yields sugar and a spirituous liquor." Our tea-tree is leptospcrmum or Melaleuca. In that admirable book. Maiden’s “ Useful Native Plants,” there are one or two slips which are rare in Maiden. “ This is the shrub the leaves of which were utilised by the crews of Captain Cook’s ships for the purpose of making tea. . . . It is exceedingly common about Sydney, so largo quantities would therefore bo available to the sailors.” Captain Cook had but one ship, the Endeavour; and it never entered Port Jackson. lam inclined to think the name is later, and that it was the escaped convict or the lonely settler in the bush, longing for a cup of tea, who ventured on the experiment. In New Zealand vianuka is the tea-tree, a different species only, being leptospcrmum scoparium. In New Zealand and in Australia there are birds called by the name morepork. They are different birds. The New Zealand bird is an owl, and the Australian name is generally used for the podargus. To bo quite honest I must confess I never heard a note in the bush that really resembled morepork. I allude especially to the r sound. But I am no great bushman, and therefore prefer to quote the observant D. Macdonald, “Gum Boughs and Wattle Bloom (p. 23G), who says" Many a still night in the bush I have listened to the ■weird metallic call of this strange bird, the mopoke of the natives, without hearing it give expression to the pork-shop sentiments.”

Mr A. J. Campbell, who is such an authority on our birds, writes to, mo:— “There is much confusion about the name morepork, which has been applied to the Podargus, whereas it is the owl (Ninox boohooh) that calls morepork or mopoke so loudly at night.” The confusion is old, for in 1848 Gould calls Podargus Cuvicri the “morepork of the colonists,” and it is certain that the aboriginal mopork is the same bird. The New Zealand bird must speak very distinctly to judge from the following story, given in Captain Power’s “Sketches in New Zealand”:—

“This bird gave rise to rather an amusing incident in the Hutt Valley during the time of the fighting. . . . A strong piquet was turned out regularly about an hour before daybreak. On one occasion the men had been standing silently under arms for some time, and shivering in the cold'moming air, when they were startled by a solemn request for * more pork.* The officer in command of the piquet, who had only very recently arrived in the country, ordered no talking in the ranks, which was immediately replied to by another demand, distinctly enunciated, for 'more pork/ So malaprop a remark produced a titter along the ranks, which roused the irate officer to the necessity of having his commands obeyed, and he accordingly threatened to put the next person under arrest who dared make any allusion to the unclean beast. As if in defiance of the threat, and in contempt of the constituted authorities, ‘more pork* was distinctly demanded in two places at once, and was succeeded by an irresistible giggle from one end of .the line to the other. There was no putting up with such a breach of discipline as this, and the Officer,-in a fury of indignation, went along the line in search of the mutinous offender, when suddenly a small chorus of ‘more pork' was heard on all sides, and it was explained who the real culprits were.” In a recent number of Notes and Queries (August 3) the opinion is recorded that an educated Australian colonist must feel annoyed' whenever he hears a casuarina called a she-oo k. Do you? Or has the feeling passed - away ? The writer who expresses this . opinion lays down the doctrine that the “colonists converted a native word for the casuarina trees into * she-oak/ ” , This is not improbable, but I can find no trace of the native word ; and certainly as early as 1802 (Barrington) it was spelt she-oak. Mr William Howitt, in his "Two Years in Victoria,” spelt shiack. But in " Travels with Leichhardt (1859), p. 33. a different origin is assigned. “ The 1 name of the first (she-oak) is said to have : been derived from ‘ sheeac/ the name of an American tree, producing the beef-wood like our she-oak/* Before I came upon this extract I had received similar information in a private letter that English officers who had served in Canada had named the tree after one that they bad known there. This, if true, is very inteiesting; to prove it true we must find the American tree. It is not in the Century, nor in the large Webster, nor in Punk and Wagnall’s Standard, nor in two dictionaries of Americanisms. I have written to Canada and to the States to j enquire, and I am informed by Dr Dawson, j of the Geological Survey of Canada, who [

is “ thoroughly acquainted with Indian folklore, languages,” &c., and l>y Prohsssnr Fowlor, of Queen’s University. Kingston, that there is no such Indian word. Those who have erred in thinking there was have erred in company with Leichhardt and, according’ to the Baron, with Hooker. A lecturer is supposed to give information, hut in many things 1 seek it. AVhy is a certain fish called trecalhj? The name has » Cornish ring. Jt U not native—that is to say, it is not in any of the vocabularies —and I am assured it is not an aboriginal combination of letters, A corruption of cavally has been suggested, which is an old name of Spanish origin for a fish, but I don’t know whether the same or even a cognate fish. If -ira?lahy is a small kangaroo, and i vallaroo a big dark mountain kangaroo, it would look as if the first syllable or two meant kangaroo, but no writer throws any light on , the varied termination. I seek light. Kendall, in one of his poems, tho “ Evening Hymn,” wrote — “ The ochu's songs arc dying with the flutebird’s mellow tone,” ■What bird is tho cchu ?

It is a queer-looking name, and its pronunciation suggests a snooze. To these queries it would bo easy to add. I trust I have shown you that the study of Auatralasian words is not uninteresting, and that it is rich in problems calling for investigation.;—Australasian.