Austral English. Edward Ellis Morris

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 <i>New English Dictionary</i> 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 Association 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 pronunciation." That firm was then preparing its <i>Standard Dictionary</i>, 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 <i>Standard Dictionary</i>; 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 illustrations, 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—

      "<i>Aabec</i>. 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.

      "<i>Beauregarde</i>. The Zebra grass-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 <i>budgery</i>, good, and <i>gar</i>, parrot.

      "<i>Imou-pine</i>. A large New Zealand tree … called <i>red pine</i> by the colonists and <i>rimu</i> 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 <i>New Zealand Herald</i> 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.

      "<i>Taihoa</i>. [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. TITLE AND SCOPE OF THE BOOK.

       Table of Contents

      In the present day, when words are more and more abbreviated, a "short title" 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 <i>Austral</i> will be found with illustrations to show that its primary meaning, "southern," is being more and more limited, so that the word may now be used as equivalent to <i>Australasian</i>.

      "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 classified. 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 <i>Australian Slang Dictionary</i>. 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 <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.