Buckaroo: supposed African origin

[Peter Richardson]

To piggyback on Larry's comment, here's another smidgen, this time from
Romon Adams's _Western Words_ (hardcover Univ. of Oklahoma Press, now
paperback Hippocrene Books 1998), p. 21:

BUCKAROO
A term used in the Northwest for cowboy. The terms baquero, buckhara, and
buckayro, each a perversion of either the Spanish word vaquero or boyero,
are also used (Philip A. Rollins, The Cowboy [NY, Charles Scribner's Sons,
1936], 39).

The syntax of this entry implies that boyero is something other than
Spanish; maybe Rollins had something African up his sleeve and was unable
or unwilling to de-sleeve it.

PR

On Thu, 13 Mar 2003, Gerald Cohen wrote:

> 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
>