Buckaroo: supposed African origin

[Gerald Cohen]

At 10:03 AM -0500 3/13/03, Laurence Horn wrote:
>
>At 2:16 PM +0000 3/13/03, Michael Quinion wrote:
>>In the entry for "buckaroo" in RHHDAS appears the note "not from an
>>African language", which is fair enough. But who put this forward
>>seriously enough to require Professor Lighter to specifically
>>disclaim it, and from what African source? I don't have access to the
>>issues of American Speech to which he refers. Can anybody give me
>>chapter and verse?
>>
>>--
>Right, I assume there must be extensive discussion in those American
>Speech articles, especially the "especially" ones mentioned, since
>the only etymological speculations in the actual cites are the
>reasonable (if politically incorrectly phrased) references in the
>early XX century entries--"bastard Spanish", "perversion of the
>Spanish _vaquero_", etc.  Given that there is no general practice
>that would yield e.g. "not from Basque or Uzbek" at the _OK_ entry,
>*someone* in one of those AS papers must have proposed the
>out-of-Africa derivation.
>
>Larry


   I have a book before me: _The African Heritage of American English_
by Joseph E. Holloway and Winifred K. Vass.  Indiana U. Pr., 1993.
Page 138 says:
"buckaroo, bucker -- See 'buckra (2)' and section on Cowboy Culture."
Under "buckra (2)" one finds: "Poor or mean white man, now rare in
U.S. except South Carolina Sea Islands.  Still current in Jamaican
English.  Convergence with Spanish 'vaquero'; hence 'buckaroo,
bucker' (cowboy)."

    On p. 153 (start of section "Cowboy Culture"), the authors present
"buckaroo  -- Ibibio 'buckra,' poor white man; a white person bucking
a bronco."

     Holloway and Vass almost certainly relied on some earlier source
for their African origin of "buckaroo/buckra." One possibility is
David Dalby's "Black through White: Patterns of Communication in
African and the New World (Hans Wolff Memorial Lecture, 1969). I'll
check this in the next day or two.

    Meanwhile, on p. xviii the authors write: "Cassidy and LePage's
_Dictionary of Jamaican English_ (1980) is a comprehensive listing of
words in everyday Jamaican English. While the dictionary cross-lists
a few Africanisms in North America, it does so within the context of
Jamaican English.  In other words, the book is not a dictionary of
Africanisms.  Still there are numerous examples of cross-reference
words common to Jamaican English and American Sea Island Creole
(Gullah).  There exists a strong relationship between Jamaican
English and Gullah in that both form the basis for Sea Island Creole
with regional variations.  For instance, the word 'buckra' originates
from both Igbo and Efik and means 'white man' in both dialects.  The
term is still current in both Jamaican English and Gullah literature.
..."

    I'm not familiar with the subject of Gullah, Sea Island Creole,
etc., and will therefore refrain from judging the African origin of
"buckaroo/buckra." But on a general note, Holloway and Vass go way
overboard in suggesting derivations of English words from the African
languages; essentially  any English word which is similar in sound
and meaning to any word in a wide area of Africa is fair game to be
considered a borrowing. Their book is a preliminary list of
similarities waiting to be checked out, not even at the working-paper
stage.
While a few suggestions will no doubt pan out, the book as a whole
must be taken with a huge grain of salt.

Gerald Cohen