Austral English Part 1

A Dictionary of Austral English.

by Edward Morris.

I. ORIGIN OF THE WORK.

About a generation ago Mr. Matthew Arnold twitted our nation with the fact that "the journeyman work of literature" was much better done in France--the books of reference, the biographical dictionaries, and the translations from the cla.s.sics. He did not especially mention dictionaries of the language, because he was speaking in praise of academies, and, as far as France is concerned, the great achievement in that line is Littre and not the Academy's Dictionary. But the reproach has now been rolled away--nous avons change tout cela--and in every branch to which Arnold alluded our journeyman work is quite equal to anything in France.

It is generally allowed that a vast improvement has taken place in translations, whether prose or verse. From quarter to quarter the Dictionary of National Biography continues its stately progress. But the n.o.blest monument of English scholarship is The New English Dictionary on Historical Principles, founded mainly on the materials collected by the Philological Society, edited by Dr. James Murray, and published at the cost of the University of Oxford. The name New will, however, be unsuitable long before the Dictionary is out of date. Its right name is the Oxford English Dictionary (`O.E.D.'). That great dictionary is built up out of quotations specially gathered for it from English books of all kinds and all periods; and Dr. Murray several years ago invited a.s.sistance from this end of the world for words and uses of words peculiar to Australasia, or to parts of it. In answer to his call I began to collect; but instances of words must be noted as one comes across them, and of course they do not occur in alphabetical order. The work took time, and when my parcel of quotations had grown into a considerable heap, it occurred to me that the collection, if a little further trouble were expended upon it, might first enjoy an independent existence. Various friends kindly contributed more quotations: and this Book is the result.

In January 1892, having the honour to be President of the Section of "Literature and the Fine Arts" at the Hobart Meeting of the Australasian a.s.sociation for the Advancement of Science, I alluded to Dr. Murray's request:

A body like this Section, composed of men from different parts of scattered colonies, might render valuable help in organising the work of collecting authorities for our various peculiar words and usages. Twenty or thirty men and women, each undertaking to read certain books with the new dictionary in mind, and to note in a prescribed fashion what is peculiar, could accomplish all that is needed. Something has been done in Melbourne, but the Colonies have different words and uses of words, and this work is of a kind which might well extend beyond the bounds of a single city. At first it may seem as if our words were few, as if in the hundred years of Australian life few special usages have arisen; but a man with a philological turn of mind, who notes what he hears, will soon find the list grow. Some philologers speak, not perhaps very satisfactorily, of being "at the fountains of language": we can all of us testify to the birth of some words within our own memory, but the origin of these, if not noted, will in time be lost. There are many other words which the strictest cannot condemn as slang, though even slang, being the speech of the people, is not undeserving of some scientific study; words, for instance, which have come into the language from the Aborigines, and names of animals, shrubs, and flowers. It might even be possible, with sufficient co-operation, to produce an Australian dictionary on the same lines as the New English Dictionary by way of supplement to it.

Organisation might make the labour light, whilst for many it would from its very nature prove a pleasant task.

These suggestions were not carried out. Individuals sent quotations to Oxford, but no organisation was established to make the collection systematic or complete, and at the next meeting of the a.s.sociation the Section had ceased to exist, or at least had doffed its literary character.

At a somewhat later date, Messrs. Funk and Wagnall of New York invited me to join an "Advisory Committee on disputed spelling and p.r.o.nunciation." That firm was then preparing its Standard Dictionary, and one part of the scheme was to obtain opinions as to usage from various parts of the English-speaking world, especially from those whose function it is to teach the English Language. Subsequently, at my own suggestion, the firm appointed me to take charge of the Australian terms in their Dictionary, and I forwarded a certain number of words and phrases in use in Australia. But the accident of the letter A, for Australian, coming early in the alphabet gives my name a higher place than it deserves on the published list of those co-operating in the production of this Standard Dictionary; for with my present knowledge I see that my contribution was lamentably incomplete. Moreover, I joined the Editorial Corps too late to be of real use. Only the final proofs were sent to me, and although my corrections were reported to New York without delay, they arrived too late for any alterations to be effected before the sheets went to press. This took the heart out of my work for that Dictionary.

For its modernness, for many of its lexicographical features, and for its splendid ill.u.s.trations, I entertain a cordial admiration for the book, and I greatly regret the unworthiness of my share in it. It is quite evident that others had contributed Australasian words, and I must confess I hardly like to be held responsible for some of their statements. For instance--

"Aabec. An Australian medicinal bark said to promote perspiration."

I have never heard of it, and my ignorance is shared by the greatest Australian botanist, the Baron von Mueller.

"Beauregarde. The Zebra gra.s.s-parrakeet of Australia.

From F. beau, regarde. See BEAU n. and REGARD."

As a matter of fact, the name is altered out of recognition, but really comes from the aboriginal budgery, good, and gar, parrot.

"Imou-pine. A large New Zealand tree... . called red pine by the colonists and rimu by the natives."

I can find no trace of the spelling "Imou." In a circular to New Zealand newspapers I asked whether it was a known variant.

The New Zealand Herald made answer--"He may be sure that the good American dictionary has made a misprint. It was scarcely worth the Professor's while to take notice of mere examples of pakeha ignorance of Maori."

"Swagman. [Slang, Austral.] 1. A dealer in cheap trinkets, etc.

2. A swagger."

In twenty-two years of residence in Australia, I have never heard the former sense.

"Taihoa. [Anglo-Tasmanian.] No hurry; wait."

The word is Maori, and Maori is the language of New Zealand, not of Tasmania.

These examples, I know, are not fair specimens of the accuracy of the Standard Dictionary, but they serve as indications of the necessity for a special book on Australasian English.

II. t.i.tLE AND SCOPE OF THE BOOK.

In the present day, when words are more and more abbreviated, a "short t.i.tle" may be counted necessary to the welfare of a book. For this reason "Austral English" has been selected.

In its right place in the dictionary the word Austral will be found with ill.u.s.trations to show that its primary meaning, "southern," is being more and more limited, so that the word may now be used as equivalent to Australasian.

"Austral" or "Australasian English" means all the new words and the new uses of old words that have been added to the English language by reason of the fact that those who speak English have taken up their abode in Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand. Hasty inference might lead to the remark that such addition is only slang, but the remark is far from being accurate; probably not one-tenth of the new vocabulary could fairly be so cla.s.sified. A great deal of slang is used in Australasia, but very much less is generated here than is usually believed. In 1895 a literary policeman in Melbourne brought out a small Australian Slang Dictionary. In spite of the name, however, the compiler confesses that "very few of the terms it contains have been invented by Australians." My estimate is that not one word in fifty in his little book has an Australian origin, or even a specially Australian use.

The phrase "Australasian English" includes something much wider than slang. Those who, speaking the tongue of Shakspeare, of Milton, and of Dr. Johnson, came to various parts of Australasia, found a Flora and a Fauna waiting to be named in English. New birds, beasts and fishes, new trees, bushes and flowers, had to receive names for general use. It is probably not too much to say that there never was an instance in history when so many new names were needed, and that there never will be such an occasion again, for never did settlers come, nor can they ever again come, upon Flora and Fauna so completely different from anything seen by them before. When the offshoots of our race first began to settle in America, they found much that was new, but they were still in the same North Temperate zone. Though there is now a considerable divergence between the American and the English vocabulary, especially in technical terms, it is not largely due to great differences in natural history. An oak in America is still a Quercus, not as in Australia a Casuarina. But with the whole tropical region intervening it was to be expected that in the South Temperate Zone many things would be different, and such expectation was amply fulfilled. In early descriptions of Australia it is a sort of commonplace to dwell on this complete variety, to harp on the trees that shed bark not leaves, and the cherries with the stones outside. Since the days when "Adam gave names to all cattle and to the fowl of the air and to every beast of the field" never were so many new names called for. Unfortunately, names were not given by the best educated in the community, but often by those least qualified to invent satisfactory names: not by a linguist, a botanist, an ornithologist, an ichthyologist, but by the ordinary settler.

Even in countries of old civilisation names are frequently conferred or new words invented, at times with good and at times with unsatisfactory results, by the average man, whom it is the modern fashion to call "the man in the street." Much of Australasian nomenclature is due to "the man in the bush"

--more precise address not recorded. Givers of new names may be benefactors to their language or violators of its purity and simplicity, but in either case they are nearly always, like the burial-place of Moses, unknown.

III. SOURCES OF NEW WORDS.

Of Australasian additions to the English language there are two main sources, which correspond to the twofold division of them into new words and new uses of old words.

1. Altered English.

The commoner origin of Australasian English words is the turning and twisting of an already existing English name. The settler saw a fruit somewhat like a cherry. Though he knew well that it was not a cherry, he christened it the "native cherry." It may here be remarked that the prefix native is not a satisfactory distinguishing adjective. Native bear, native cherry, may teach the young Australian that the bear and the cherry so named are not as the bear of the Arctic Regions or the cherry of Europe. But in the British Museum the label does not help much. The settler heard a bird laugh in what he thought an extremely ridiculous manner, its opening notes suggesting a donkey's bray--he called it the "laughing jacka.s.s." His descendants have dropped the adjective, and it has come to pa.s.s that the word "jacka.s.s" denotes to an Australian something quite different from its meaning to other speakers of our English tongue. The settler must have had an imagination. Whip-bird, or Coach-whip, from the sound of the note, Lyre-bird from the appearance of the outspread tail, are admirable names.

Another cla.s.s of name brought the Australian word nearer to its English use. "Robin" for instance is applied to birds of various species not known in Europe. Bird-names, fish-names, plant-names, are sometimes transferred to new species, sometimes to a new genus, sometimes to an entirely different Natural Order, bearing a resemblance to the original, either real or fancied, as for instance "Magpie." It is hardly necessary to dwell longer on this point, for almost every page of the Dictionary bears witness to it.

2. Words new to the Language.

(a) Aboriginal Australian.

Many of the new Australasian words are taken from the languages of the aborigines, often with considerable alteration due to misunderstanding. Such words are either Australian or Maori.

Whilst in New Zealand careful attention has been paid by competent scholars to the musical Maori language, it can hardly be claimed that the Australian family of languages has ever been scientifically studied, though there is a heap of printed material--small grammars and lists of words--rudis indigestaque moles. There is no doubt that the vocabularies used in different parts of Australia and Tasmania varied greatly, and equally little doubt that the languages, in structure and perhaps originally in vocabulary, were more or less connected. About the year 1883, Professor Sayce, of Oxford, wrote a letter, which was published in The Argus, pointing out the obligation that lay upon the Australian colonies to make a scientific study of a vanishing speech. The duty would be stronger were it not for the distressing lack of pence that now is vexing public men.

Probably a sum of L300 a year would suffice for an educated inquirer, but his full time for several years would be needed.

Such an one should be trained at the University as a linguist and an observer, paying especial attention to logic and to Comparative Philology. Whilst the colonies neglect their opportunities, and Sibylla year by year withdraws her offer, perhaps "the inevitable German" will intervene, and in a well-arranged book bring order out of the chaos of vocabularies and small pamphlets on the subject, all that we have to trust to now.

The need of scientific accuracy is strong. For the purposes of this Dictionary I have been investigating the origin of words, more or less naturalised as English, that come from aboriginal Australian, in number between seventy and a hundred. I have received a great deal of kind a.s.sistance, many people taking much trouble to inform me. But there is a manifest lack of knowledge. Many supplied me with the meanings of the words as used in English, but though my appeal was scattered far and wide over Australia (chiefly through the kindness of the newspapers), few could really give the origin of the words.

Two amongst the best informed went so far as to say that Australian words have no derivation. That doctrine is hard to accept. A word of three syllables does not spring complete from the brain of an aboriginal as Athene rose fully armed from the head of Zeus.

It is beyond all doubt that the vocabularies of the Aborigines differed widely in different parts. Frequently, the English have carried a word known in one district to a district where it was not known, the aboriginals regarding the word as pure English. In several books statements will be found that such and such a word is not Aboriginal, when it really has an aboriginal source but in a different part of the Continent.

Mr. Threlkeld, in his Australian Grammar, which is especially concerned with the language of the Hunter River, gives a list of "barbarisms," words that he considers do not belong to the aboriginal tongue. He says with perfect truth-"Barbarisms have crept into use, introduced by sailors, stockmen, and others, in the use of which both blacks and whites labour under the mistaken idea, that each one is conversing in the other's language." And yet with him a "barbarism" has to be qualified as meaning "not belonging to the Hunter District." But Mr. Threlkeld is not the only writer who will not acknowledge as aboriginal sundry words with an undoubted Australian pedigree.

(b) Maori.

The Maori language, the Italian of the South, has received very different treatment from that meted out by fate and indifference to the aboriginal tongues of Australia. It has been studied by competent scholars, and its grammar has been comprehensively arranged and stated. A Maori Dictionary, compiled more than fifty years ago by a missionary, afterwards a bishop, has been issued in a fourth edition by his son, who is now a bishop. Yet, of Maori also, the same thing is said with respect to etymology. A Maori scholar told me that, when he began the study many years ago, he was warned by a very distinguished scholar not to seek for derivations, as the search was full of pitfalls. It was not maintained that words sprang up without an origin, but that the true origin of most of the words was now lost. In spite of this double warning, it may be maintained that some of the origins both of Maori and of Australian words have been found and are in this book recorded.

The p.r.o.nunciation of Maori words differs so widely from that of Australian aboriginal names that it seems advisable to insert a note on the subject.

Australian aboriginal words have been written down on no system, and very much at hap-hazard. English people have attempted to express the native sounds phonetically according to English p.r.o.nunciation. No definite rule has been observed, different persons giving totally different values to represent the consonant and vowel sounds. In a language with a spelling so unphonetic as the English, in which the vowels especially have such uncertain and variable values, the results of this want of system have necessarily been very unsatisfactory and often grotesque. Maori words, on the other hand, have been written down on a simple and consistent system, adopted by the missionaries for the purpose of the translation of the Bible.

This system consists in giving the Italian sound to the vowels, every letter--vowel and consonant--having a fixed and invariable value. Maori words are often very melodious. In p.r.o.nunciation the best rule is to p.r.o.nounce each syllable with a nearly equal accent.

Care has been taken to remember that this is an Australasian English and not a Maori Dictionary; therefore to exclude words that have not pa.s.sed into the speech of the settlers.

But in New Zealand Maori is much more widely used in the matter of vocabulary than the speech of the aborigines is in Australia, or at any rate in the more settled parts of Australia; and the Maori is in a purer form. Though some words and names have been ridiculously corrupted, the language of those who dwell in the bush in New Zealand can hardly be called Pigeon English, and that is the right name for the "lingo" used in Queensland and Western Australia, which, only partly represented in this book, is indeed a falling away from the language of Bacon and Shakspeare.