Austral English / A dictionary of Australasian words, phrases and usages with those aboriginal-Australian and Maori words which have become incorporated in the language, and the commoner scientific words that have had their origin in Australasia - Edward Ellis Morris

<hw>Kangaroo</hw>, n. (1) an aboriginal word. See Marsupial.

(a) The Origin of the Name. The name was first obtained in 1770, while H.M.S. Endeavour lay beached at the Endeavour River, where Cooktown, Queensland, now is. The name first appears in print in 1773, in the book brought out by the relatives of Mr. Parkinson, who was draughtsman to Banks the naturalist, and who had died on the voyage. The object of this book was to anticipate the official account of Cook's Voyage by Hawkesworth, which appeared later in the same year. It is now known that Hawkesworth's book was like a rope twisted of four strands, viz. Cook's journal, the diaries of the two naturalists, Banks and Solander, and quartum quid, the Johnsonian pomposity of Dr. Hawkesworth. Cook's journal was published in 1893, edited by Captain Wharton, hydrographer to the Admiralty; Banks's journal, in 1896, edited by Sir J. D. Hooker. Solander's journal has never been printed.

When Englishmen next came to Australia in 1788, it was found that the word Kangaroo was not known to the natives round Port Jackson, distant 1500 miles to the South of Cooktown. In fact, it was thought by them to be an English word. (See quotation, Tench, 1789.) It is a question whether the word has belonged to any aboriginal vocabulary since. "Capt. Philip P. King, the explorer, who visited that locality [sc. Endeavour River] forty-nine years after Cook, relates in his `Narrative of the Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia,' that he found the word kangaroo unknown to the tribe he met there, though in other particulars the vocabulary he compiled agrees very well with Captain Cook's." (Curr's `Australian Race,' vol. i. p. 27.) In the fourth volume of Curr's book a conspectus is given of the words used in different parts of Australia for various objects. In the list of names for this animal there are a few that are not far from Kangaroo, but some inquirers suspect the accuracy of the list, or fancy that the natives obtained the words sounding like Kangaroo from English. It may be assumed that the word is not now in use as an aboriginal word. Has it, then, disappeared? or was it an original mistake on the part of Banks or Cook ?

The theory of a mistake has obtained widely. It has figured in print, and finds a place in at least one dictionary. Several correspondents have written that the word Kangaroo meant "I don't understand," and that Banks mistook this for a name. This is quite possible, but at least some proof is needed, as for instance the actual words in the aboriginal language that could be twisted into this meaning. To find these words, and to hear their true sound, would test how near the explanation hits the mark. Banks was a very careful observer, and he specially notes the precautions he took to avoid any mistake in accepting native words. Moreover, according to Surgeon Anderson, the aborigines of Van Diemen's Land described the animal by the name of Kangaroo. (See quotation, 1787.)

On the other hand, it must be remembered that it is an ascertained fact that the aborigines taboo a word on the death of any one bearing that word as a proper name. (See quotation under Nobbler, 1880.) If, therefore, after Cook's visit, some man called Kangaroo died, the whole tribe would expunge Kangaroo from its vocabulary. There is, however, some evidence that the word was much later in use in Western Australia. (See quotation, 1835.)

It is now asserted that the word is in use again at the very part of Queensland where the Endeavour was beached. Lumholtz, in his `Amongst Cannibals' (p. 311), gives it in his aboriginal vocabulary. Mr. De Vis, of the Brisbane Museum, in his paper before the Geographical Society at Brisbane (1894), says that "in point of fact the word `kangaroo' is the normal equivalent for kangaroo at the Endeavour River; and not only so, it is almost the type-form of a group of variations in use over a large part of Australia." It is curiously hard to procure satisfactory evidence as to the fact. Mr. De Vis says that his first statement was "made on the authority of a private correspondent; "but another correspondent writes from Cooktown, that the blacks there have taken Kangaroo from English. Inquiries inserted in each of the Cooktown newspapers have produced no result. Mr. De Vis' second argument as to the type-form seems much stronger. A spoken language, unwritten, unprinted, must inevitably change, and change rapidly. A word current in 1770 would change rather than disappear, and the root consonants would remain. The letters ng together, followed by r, occur in the proportion of one in thirteen, of the names for the animal tabulated by Curr.

It is a difficult matter on which to speak decidedly, but probably no great mistake was made, and the word received was a genuine name of the animal.

See further the quotations, 1896.

(b) The Plural of the Word.

There seems to be considerable doubt as to the plural of the word, whether it should take s like most English words, or remain unchanged like sheep, deer. In two consecutive pages of one book the two plurals are used. The general use is the plural in s. See 1793 Hunter, 1845 Balfour, and 1880 Senior; sportsmen frequently use the form Kangaroo.