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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.
Numerous idiomatic phrases occur in Australian usage, some more historical than contemporary in usage. Send her down, Hughie is an example of surfie slang. Australian Football League spectators use the term "white maggot" (derived from their formerly white uniforms) towards umpires at games. [31]
Note: As "Australian Aboriginal" is not a distinct language, but rather a collective term for a large group of languages, this category is useful as a holding place for all words with an origin in the different Aboriginal languages.
In Victorian era slang used by criminals, "gammon" was to swindle someone or cheat them, [23] used for example in the sense of creating a distraction while pickpocketing; or, more generally, nonsense, "humbug". [24] Its origin has been variously thought to be related to leg of cured ham known as gammon or the game of backgammon. [23] [25]
The Australian National Dictionary: Australian Words and Their Origins is a historical dictionary of Australian English, recording 16,000 words, phrases, and meanings of Australian origin and use. The first edition of the dictionary, edited by W. S. Ramson, was published in 1988 by Oxford University Press ; the second edition was edited by ...
Western Australian English is the English spoken in the Australian state of Western Australia (WA). Although generally the same as most other Australian English , it has some state-specific words – including slang and Aboriginal words – and variations in pronunciation.
The expression "within cooee" has developed within Australian as slang for "within a manageable distance". It is often used in the negative sense (i.e., "you're not even within cooee", meaning not close to or, a long way off). Another example would be: "They realised they were lost and there was no-one within cooee".
Internationally well-known examples of Australian terminology include outback, meaning a remote, sparsely populated area, the bush, meaning either a native forest or a country area in general, and g'day, a greeting. Dinkum, or fair dinkum means "true", "legitimate" or "is that true?", among other things, depending on context and inflection. [34]