LL-L "Etymology" 2009.11.24 (01) [EN]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 24 November 2009 - Volume 01
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From: Tomás Ó Cárthaigh <tomasocarthaigh at yahoo.com>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2009.11.23 (04) [EN]

The version of the story of the Kangarroo take was the Captain asking a
native what the animanl was, to which he got the reply "Kan ga roo?" which
meant "What did you say?" in the Aborigional language the man spoke...

Tomás

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From: jmtait <jmtait at wirhoose.co.uk>
 Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2009.11.23 (04) [EN]

Sandy wrote:

From: Sandy Fleming <sandy at fleimin.demon.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2009.11.23 (02) [EN]

> From: clarkedavid8 at aol.com
> Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2009.11.23 (01) [EN
>
> I heard a story about the eymology of the word "kangaroo". When
> Captain Cook reached Australia, just as this strange animal was
> spotted on the shore and people were asking each other what it was, a
> Scottish crew member who was stuck in the toilet shouted "Ah cann' ga'
> roo'" and the name stuck. Â I am sceptical about this story, as I can't

> remember any mention of toilets with closing doors in the novels of
> O'Brien.

"Ah cann' ga' roo'"?

But what does this mean?


Unless this is a rhetorical question, Sandy (?) it's 'I canna get oot.' As
we know, all Scots overseas Parliamo Glesca!

John M. Tait.

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From: clarkedavid8 at aol.com
 Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2009.11.23 (04) [EN

 "Ah cann' ga' roo'"?

But what does this mean?
Sandy Fleming


"I can't get out". The story was told to me a long time ago by a Scotswoman.

David Clarke

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From: clarkedavid8 at aol.com
 Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2009.11.23 (04) [EN

Ah cann' ga' roo'"?

But what does this mean?

Sandy Fleming
http://scotstext.org/


Perhaps he meant to say "Ah canna ga oot" but frequent contact with English
crew members and frustration caused him to drop the final "a" of "canna",
insert an intrusive "r" between "ga" and "oot" (a common feature of
colloquial English between two vowels - even the queen does it
now,apparently) and replace the "t" at the end of "oot" with a glo'al stop,
which of course could not be heard by his shipmates on deck. You might
object that this is Scots coloured by Estuary English, but EE was probably
around a long time before it was first documented.

David Clarke

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From: Paul Finlow-Bates <wolf_thunder51 at yahoo.co.uk>
 Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2009.11.23 (02) [EN]

I gather no word like "kangaroo" has ever been affirmed in any Eastern
Australian language, either as a name for a macropod, "I don't understand
you", or anything else.  Many of those languages are extinct of course, but
the surviving ones are all pretty closely related, at least as close as,
say, Indo-Iranian.  It would presumably be possible to reconstruct it if it
existed.

Another one is "boomerang".  The returning kind (exclusive to the north) is
a "kylie" (whence the name of the pint-sized songstress).  None of the names
for the other kinds, anywhere else, sounds remotely like boomerang, despite
it having such an obviously "Aboriginal" sound.

Part of the problem undoubtedly lies in the fact that many Aboriginal
Australian languages contain sounds unkown to English speakers, who wrote
down the closest thing their ear could discern, which was often very
different.

Incidently, I've heard that Yucatan in Mexico really does mean "I don't
understand you" in a Mayan language; has anybody heard any confirmation of
this?

Paul

•

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