Chester Graham: origin of Didgeridoo

[Elizabeth J. Pyatt]

Hello:

Someone is inquiring if there is a possble Celtic 
origin of Australian Didgeridoo as a corruption 
for "black pipe".

Note: A native Australian etymology has been discounted.

Please send messages to the list.

Elizabeth

Delivered-To: CELTLING at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
Date:         Mon, 24 May 2004 01:19:53 -0400
From: Chester Graham <Tradux at IDL.COM.AU>
Subject:      origin of Didgeridoo
To: CELTLING at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG

I am trying to trace the origin of the word Didgeridoo.

  This is an
"Aboriginal wind instrument consisting of a wooden pipe about two metres
long and five centimetres in diameter on which complex rhythmic patterns
are played more or less on one note; drone pipe. Also, didjeridoo.
[probably imitative]
  - Macquarie Dictionary, Revized Third Edition

  The explanation Imitative amazes anyone who has heard the instrument;
it’s as if the violin had been named a bangclanger.

  The word Didgeridoo is unknown in the Aboriginal languages of Australia,
which have their own words for it.

  An indigenous Australian working in Sydney, Jeremy, who plays the
didgeridoo as a working musician, offers a different etymology. His
grandmother, on the far North East coast of Australia, told him that the
word came from Irish people who described a didgeridoo player as a Black
Piper.

  The didgeridoo is certainly a pipe. Indigenous Australians certainly
looked black to the Irish and Scots who invaded Australia as convicts and
later as willing immigrants.

  Black Piper rings a chord, in analogy with the Scots skean-dhu. Dhu would
account for Black, but how can we account for Didgeri?

  I would be grateful for any ideas from you Celtic scholars.

  Thank you very much.

   - Chester Graham
--
o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o

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