Chester Graham: Didgeridoo

[Elizabeth J. Pyatt]

Delivered-To: celtling at listserv.linguistlist.org
Date: Mon, 21 Jun 2004 02:54:20 +1000 (EST)
Subject: Didgeridoo
From: Tradux at idl.net.au

Dear Dr Pyatt
  Here is my thanks to the members of your list.
  Regrettably, the first three names are lacking. Just after the first
three Celticists offered help, my IBM had an episode.

  I can, though, thank Alberto Fedrigotti, for his refreshing insight.
  St John Skilton wrote a generous, informed reply. Is his Fribourg thesis
on the web?

  Kevin Riley, whose phonology I appreciated, made the point that an
indigenous source language may have perished. He makes the valuable
observation

>The instrument was restricted to a fairly small area in the north, but it
>is also the area where the languages are most divergent.
  He finds ü moving to i unusual.
  ü moving to i, synchronically and diachronically, is common in language
contact, but ü, [y], may not be the vowel that Kevin Riley means, and I
may have missed the point.

  Tom Pullman quoted a list consensus that
>the sounds "didgeri" and "dúdaire" are really not similar enough.

  Yet Caoimhin O Donnaile wrote

>The pronunciation of "dúidire dubh" and didgeridoo, though, are very
>similar indeed, at least in Donegall Gaelic (and Scottish Gaelic).
  He adds
>Ó Dónaill gives "dúidire" as a variant of "dúdaire". This could occur
>under the influence of the slender 'r'.

  As I am not a Celticist, this last is beyond me.
  Nor an etymologist. Not to clutter your hospitable space, I welcome
enquiry on the indigenous languages I have consulted, and on why I reject
the published etymologies. I will reply to all.
  Far from being prescriptive, I was merely seeking any possible source for
the word. I now have, thanks to Caoimhin O Donnaile, a possible source to
mention, with due qualification.
  I will show this and any following correspondence to the indigenous
didgeridoo musician Jeremy, whose grandmother’s explanation of the
English word "didgeridoo" sparked my interest.
  All the best
  - Chester Graham

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

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