Definitions
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun Australian Aboriginal
horse
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Uncertain. Suspected to be from an Australian language of coastal New South Wales, but the term was used by white settlers as a pidgin for communicating with the indigenous people and was rapidly adopted into their languages (preceding actual arrival of horses in some cases), making an origin difficult to ascertain. Each may well have believed they were using the other's word! (Reference: R. M. W. Dixon, Australian Aboriginal Words, Oxford University Press, 1990, ISBN 0-19-553099-3.)
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Examples
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I found he interspersed his remarks frequently with the words Larapinta, white fellow, and yarraman (horses).
Australia Twice Traversed, Illustrated, Ernest Giles 1866
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Horses were named ` white man's kangaroo '(in the Adelaide region) or yarraman which seems to mean ` long teeth.'
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