Kartu Loanwords into the English of the Australian Midwest
History & Background
I grew up on a remote cattle/sheep station on Badimaya land. Just to the north of us is Wajarri land, and we live in an area that has historically seen a lot of admixture between the two. To our east is the Western Desert Bloc (that might be an outdated term, I'm not sure), to our south are some Noongar and Western Desert dialects, and to our west are the various coastal language groups in the vicinity of Geraldton. The region was first settled by squatters in the late 1800's, and in the early 1900's many mining towns were established asthe industry grew in Western Australia, including the nearest town to us, Jafton.
Relations with Indigenous people were, obviously, very complex and rocky. In towns, where segregation was practiced until around the 1970's, there was a great divide. On stations, however, segregation was less common and less strict. Many Indigenous people from all around would come to the local stations for work, and most would live on the properties they worked on. Blackfellas (this term is common and inoffensive in this region) were definitely treated worse than whitefellas; they were usually paid less, treated unfairly, made to live away from the main homestead, etc. Anyway, because of this association in rural areas, a lot of language crossover was had in these communities. Many white workers would learn words from their Indigenous peers, and I've even met one old white pastoralist who claims to have learnt Badimaya in his youth while working with Badimaya people. He says that, while they were out mustering, the working blackfellas would constantly sing to one another across great distances in their language.
Nowadays, the vast majority of local place names are known by their Indigenous names, and many people in the area use loanwords from the local languages in daily life. People who are actually of Indigenous descent use them the most, obviously, but whitefellas use many terms as well. Whereas blackfellas may be more inclined to use Indigenous words for things like kinship terms (such as Gami, meaning "grandparent") or exclamations (such as balayi, vaguely meaning "look out!"), whitefellas' usage of Indigenous loanwords tends to be more restricted to nouns for places and animals (though it isn't always).
Alright, let's just look at some good loanwords.
"Wonga" (Wangga)
In the Indigenous languages of the Midwest and southwest of Australia, wangga is a common term among many languages that means something like "conversation", "language", or "to talk". Many older pastoralists I have spoken to say that they use the word loaned into English, "wonga", either as a noun or a verb to refer to the act of a group of people sitting down and sharing stories or gossip. I find this to be a great symbol of a romanticised ideal of that old time, where white and black workers would share stories and jokes while out mustering, waiting for the billy to boil.
"Bungarra" (Bangara)
Bungarra is a very interesting word. In the English of my family, it refers to the Argus monitor, also called the yellow-spotted monitor. In the English of whoever wrote the Wiktionary and Wikipedia entries, it refers to the sand goanna. In Badimaya, my dad says bangara refers to a perentie, but the Badimaya Dictionary says it refers to a "large black goanna with a yellow stripe". The Wajarri Dictionary says in that language it refers to "a type of goanna, big and black with yellow spots and a diamond-shaped head." In Nhanda Wangganhaa it means "large black goanna", and in the Malgana dictionary, an obvious cognate bangga refers to a racehorse lizard. There's plenty of confusion about what specific goanna this word refers to in each of these languages.
"Wonardee" (Wanardi)
Wonardee is another confusing lizard word, this time from Badimaya wanardi. This one's confusion is simpler, but still peculiar. Whereas all the linguists at the Bundiyarra-Irra Wangga Language Centre (the team at the forefront of Badimaya language research) insist that it is a generic term for any lizard, my family (who have been in contact with Badimaya people for a century and a half now) insist that it refers to a specific lizard, being little, slender, and orange.
Another odd thing about this word is its pronunciation. In English it is pronounced /ˈwɔnᴀːdi/, and in Badimaya it is /wᴀnᴀɖi/ [ˈwɒnəˌɖi]. What interests me is the English pronunciation: how come we use a long "ar" sound where Badimaya has a short "a" sound? It seems to be because of the retroflex consonant in the Badimaya word. It seems to me that my ancestors heard this word as /ˈwɔnᴀɹdi/, interpreting the retroflex /ɖ/ as a cluster of /ɹd/ that would've been much more familiar to them, thus giving us the long vowel we use today.
Update: The mystery has been solved!! While I still don't know what specific lizard the word refers to, apparently in Wajarri the term wanardi refers to the "female of a small, rarely eaten brown lizard (the male being called jabi)". It seems to me like we actually got the word from Wajarri, and just lost the gender distinction, now calling all members of that mysterious species by the one name.
"Marloo" (Marlu)
Marloo is the name for the red kangaroo specifically, and cannot refer to other any species of kangaroo (or related macropod). Comes from the Kartu word marlu.
"Bullay!" (Balayi!)
Bullay is a common exclamation in the Midwest and on the nearby coast, used to mean "look out!" Most of the people who use it are either Indigenous people, or white people from rural areas and stations. It comes from a Kartu word, balayi, which has the same meaning. I suspect that the word comes from Wajarri, but it is also found in identical forms in nearby languages such as Badimaya and Nhanda.
"Goona" (Gurna)
Goona means "shit", and variations of it are used used (primarily by Indigenous people and rural non-Indigenous people) throughout Australia. It's kinda funny that this is one of the more ubiquitous Indigenous loanwords into English. It doesn't come from one specific language, because it appears in similar forms all throughout Australian languages, however I still put it here because it closely matches the Kartu word gurna, and in the midwest it probably came from this specific word.
Plant names
Many local plant names are loanwords from Kartu languages. For some reason, local plants have retained their native names much better than local animals, with the exception of animals like the bungarra and marloo. Plants like the dunna-dunna have names obviously derived from Indigenous languages, however their origins have been forgotten. Others, like the kurrajong, have Indigenous names that are not local to the area, instead loaned into English from a different language (in the case of the kurrajong, Dharug) and brought over by whitefellas. Many others are still widely known by their original names (which are still known today), such as the bowgada and the curara. And finally, there are those in-between, which are known by their original names only to locals, such as Leichhardtia_australis: outsiders would call this a silky pear, but locals might call it a cogola.
Place names
There are a lot of place names from round our way that are derived from Kartu words and phrases. Some of their meanings are still known, but most have been lost. Here's a non-comprehensive list of Kartu-derived place names.
Origins known
Yalgoo, from Wajarri yarlgu "blood"
Warriedar, from Badimaya warada "wedgetail eagle"
Goodingow, from Badimaya Gurdingawu, the original name of the place
Origins unknown
Yoweragabbie (pronunciation resembles Badimaya yara gabi "water will come". Commonly given meaning is "a place near water". Older spelling was Yaurigabbie)
Challa (Commonly given meaning is "white man's camp". May be named after an old Badimaya whose name is remembered as Challabaloo (≈ Dyalabalu). Older maps show it as Challar among other spellings which may hint at the original word's form)
Nhingan
Wondinong
Windimurra
Basically every other Indigenous place name...
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