St John Skilton: Didgeridoo and extreme caution Tradux at IDL.COM.AU

[Elizabeth J. Pyatt]

Dear Elizabeth and Chester,
the etymology of didgeridoo was an issue that came up a number of
times during my thesis, 'the survey of scottish gaelic in australia
and new zealand', submitted this year at the university of fribourg,
switzerland. you'll also excuse, i hope, a slightly more
sociolinguists' take on this issue.

Firstly, some 'facts': the word is a late entry into the australian
national dictionary, 1912, from memory. By contrast, many other words
for specific australian things (like native animals, unsurprisingly)
date back to early explorers' wordlists in the late 18th and 19th
century (See Dixon and Ramson 1990 for a good discussion of this).
therefore the possibility certainly exists that the word is not
indigenous. there are a number of australian words that sound
indigenous that are not, probably because people used words that
'sounded' indigenous as part of the colonial process of mapping and
marking the land, and the appropriation of linguistic markers as an
element of belonging. e.g. place names such as wagga-wagga, and
perhaps canberra, for which i did not find clear etymologies.

Having said that, one aspect of my thesis was how 'celtic' influence
on australia is a consistent theme of some discourses that wish to
distinguish themselves from the mainstream, or at least attribute
influence from the 'appropriate' sources. In this light, etymologies
of words should be treated with EXTREME caution, given the importance
to some respondents of finding irish or scottish gaelic influence
where traditional linguists' interpretations would be very different
indeed.

One reputable method is to find out when the words were first used,
rather than guess their structure. Dymphna Lonergan, for example, was
careful to chart the occurrence of words in print as a guide of their
provenance - her thesis was done at adelaide and completed in 2002 (i
think). some of what she felt were her solid conclusions were things
like 'bromach buidhe' for brumby (a wild horse), and 'cloth barr'
(sorry no accents) for clobber (informal/ old clothes), also
suggested by some of my own respondents. clobber, perhaps, would not
necessarily be specific to australia, and may reflect language
contact at an earlier stage. however, didgeridoo, suggested to be
'dudaire dubh' as in 'hum/ moan' plus 'dark', is much more
speculative. one reason is, indeed, that many indigenous languages
have their own names for the item. further, it could simply be
imitative, as suggested. recall that 'kangaroo' was also a
mis-understood word, 'ngangaroo' being a better approximation of what
the word probably was, and being specific to one language, not
general across australia. i f i remember correctly, it did not refer
to the animal, as such, either, but rather to its edibility, and
therefore the person noting the word probably misunderstood the
semantics. Therefore etymologies are notoriously tricky in such
language contact situations.

Given the number of suggested etymologies for various words that i
received, there should be no shame in rejecting some of them on the
basis of linguistic rigour, no matter how intently people may look
for celtic influence (although it is undoubtedly present). a theme of
my thesis is how important such linguistic issues can become in a
multicultural context in australia, potentially clouding the issues
due to the importance of representation. i note that some claims
about etymologies concentrated on items that were key to australian
national representations, such as 'didgeridoo'. It is therefore
perhaps not worth speculating on things that need a great deal more
research, in order to avoid speculation that is just plain
optimistic. rather stick to the ones that are of much surer origin -
hopefully helping to work out what patterns there have been of
borrowing or re-interpretation. after all, linguists should be
trained to find patterns in order to provide better insights.
nonetheless, it provides a nice story, folk etymology or not...
St John

--
o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o

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