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 <i>Quercus</i>, not as in Australia a <i>Casuarina</i>. 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 jackass." His descendants have dropped the adjective, and it has come to pass that the word "jackass" 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 class 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—<i>rudis indigestaque moles</i>. 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 <i>The Argus</i>, 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 assistance, 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.