List of English words of Australian Aboriginal origin
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This is a list of English words derived from Australian Aboriginal languages. Some are restricted to Australian English as a whole or to certain regions of the country. Others, such as kangaroo and boomerang, have become widely used in other varieties of English, and some have been borrowed into other languages beyond English.
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Flora and fauna
- ballart
- barramundi[1]
- bilby
- bindii
- bogong
- boobook
- brigalow
- brolga
- budgerigar
- bunyip
- burdardu
- coolabah[1]
- cumbungi
- cunjevoi
- curara
- currawong
- dillon bush
- dingo
- galah
- gang-gang
- geebung
- gidgee
- gilgie
- gymea
- jarrah
- kangaroo[2]
- koala
- kookaburra
- kurrajong
- kutjera
- mallee
- marri
- mihirung
- mulga
- Myall
- numt
- pademelon
- potoroo
- quandong
- quokka
- quoll
- taipan
- wallaby
- wallaroo
- waratah[1]
- warrigal
- witchetty
- wobbegong
- wombat
- wonga
- wonga-wonga
- yabby
Environment
- billabong
- bombora (rapids–often used to describe offshore reef breaks)
- boondie (hardened clump of sand; Noongar, W.A.[3])
- gilgai
- lerp (crystallized honeydew produced by larvae of psyllid bugs, gathered as food)
- min-minlights (ground-level lights of uncertain origin sometimes seen in remote rural Australia)
- willy willy (dust devil)
Aboriginal culture
- alcheringa
- bingy (pron. binji)[4] belly, esp. in bingy-button=navel
- boomerang
- bunyip[4]
- coolamon (wooden curved bowl used to carry food or baby)
- corroboree
- dilli (a bag)[4] commonly, and tautologically, as "dilly-bag"
- djanga
- gibber (a stone)[4]esp. in gibber plain=stony desert
- gin (now a racially offensive word for an Aboriginal woman)
- gunyah
- humpy (a hut)
- kurdaitcha
- lubra (now a racially offensive word for an Aboriginal woman)
- marn grook
- mia-mia (a hut)[4]
- nulla-nulla
- turndun
- waddy (a wooden club), earlier, any piece of wood[4]
- woggabaliri
- woomera
- wurlie or wurley[4]- a hut
- yabber or yabber-yabber (talk)[4]
- yakka (doing work of any kind)[4][5]
- Yara-ma-yha-who
Describing words
Place names
Names
English words often falsely assumed to be of Australian Aboriginal origin
- bandicoot rat)[7]
- cockatoo (from Malay)[9]
- didgeridoo (possibly from Irish or Scottish Gaelic dúdaire duh or dúdaire dúth [both /d̪u:d̪ɪrɪ d̪u:/] "black piper" or "native piper")
- emu (from Arabic, via Portuguese, for large bird)
- Taínoiguana)
- )
- nullarbor (Latin for no tree)'[10]
References
Slang - Australian Government Website
- ^ a b c "Learn English: Borrowed Indigenous Australian words". ABC Education. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 27 July 2018. Retrieved 3 April 2019.
- ^ "Australian slang - a story of Australian English". Government of Australia. Archived from the original on 7 March 2016. Retrieved 30 April 2017.
- ^ "The Perth Files: Bull ants, 'boondies', bogans and bore water". 13 April 2006.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Edward Ellis Morris (1896). Morris's Dictionary of Australian Words.
- ^ "Learn English: Borrowed Indigenous Australian words". ABC Education. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 27 July 2018. Retrieved 3 April 2019.
- Australian Drug Foundation. Retrieved 14 January 2019.
- ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 19 June 2019.
- ^ Wassilieff, Maggy. "Cockabully". Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand. Retrieved 24 September 2021.
- ISBN 978-0-19-861186-8.
- ISBN 0-949757-63-2.
Further reading
For a list of words relating to with
Australian Aboriginal language origins, see the Australian Aboriginal derivations category of words in Wiktionary
, the free dictionary.Australian Aboriginal Words in English: their origin and meaning, Dixon, R.M.W., Moore, Bruce, Ramson, W.S., and Thomas, Mandy (2006), Oxford University Press, Melbourne, VIC, Australia. ISBN 9780195540734