I ran across this comment by Bathrobe from 2022 and was struck by the word “yakka” in “It’s easier on the brain to clean up a crappy translation than it is to do the hard yakka of finding appropriate vocab, creating sentence structures, and fitting them all together…” I turned to the OED, and it turned out they’d just revised the entry this year:
Australian slang.
Work; esp. physical labour. Frequently in hard yakka: difficult or strenuous work.
1881 This has given the claimholders a heart to go in for more hard yacker.
Maryborough (Queensland) Chron. 26 February (Supplement)1898 Some [swagmen] ask for ‘yacker’, some’s lookin’ for ‘graft’, and some’s ‘after a job’.
Bulletin (Sydney) 8 October 31/2
[…]2021 I spent my 21st birthday working on a farm in QLD, and oh boy the work was hard yakka.
@itsmeowgii 17 March in twitter.com (accessed 7 Feb. 2022)
The etymology just said “< yakker v.,” so thither I went:
Australian. Now rare.
1847 ‘What for Commandant yacca paper?’ What is the gentleman working at the paper for?
J. D. Lang, Cooksland iv. 123
[…]1939 One sundowner told him that..they could always get a meal at Mack’s but they had to ‘yakka’ for it.
Narromine News (New South Wales) 27 June 5/1
And there the etymology was short but informative:
< Yagara (Brisbane region) yaga.
Yagara is in Wikipedia s.v. Turrbal language: “Turrbal is an Aboriginal Australian language of the Turrbal people of the Brisbane area of Queensland. […] Yagara, Yugarabul, and Turrbul proper are more likely to be considered dialects.” Once upon a time the OED would have said something like “From an aboriginal language.” Progress is being made!
Oh.
I thought – from exposure to South African English – a sundowner is a glass of wine (or whatever).
Hopefully a longdrop is still what I think:) (‘n kakhuis, ya3ni)
Sundowner.
Australian. Now rare.
Huh! Yakka is not rare at all in Ozland. Young people use it less, but most would have it passively at least. See also this familiar brand.
Sundowner, on the other hand, is seldom heard and would merit a gloss even for local consumption – such as Green’s 1999 citation offers: “Lingoisms like […] sundowners (swagmen who arrive just as the sun goes down in search of a bed for the night, not early evening drinks sessions), and so on, are understood by, or relevant to, fewer and fewer Australians.”
I only know sundowner from Mark Twain’s Cecil Rhodes and the Shark.
If you’re travelling on foot or horse or anything else without headlights then that’s when you start searching for bed….
“drinks sessions” – aha. I learned it in the sense of what one person drinks (a glass or a bottle may depend on fuel consumption, but I suppose after the third it is more appropriate to discuss constellations).
So what is this song about? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rh9Qc_SoHL0
The primary association of “sundown” for me is this one:
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/alzheimers-disease/expert-answers/sundowning/faq-20058511
As it says, not necessarily Alzheimer’s-related. I heard the term from medical staff when an extremely elderly relative displayed greater agitation, confusion, and hallucinations during the night during a hospital stay, and was reminded of it whenever those symptoms reoccurred on other nights.
So, yeah, I needed the context for the other senses of “sundown” when referring to people and other activities.
Ah yes, Owlmirror. Now that you say it I’ve heard the term from staff in aged care, when I was visiting a dear very frail 96-year-old tenuous relative. It’s a very palpable effect, so I try to visit just before lunch – or during lunch, and then I can help her eat.
This woman was born in the shifting region that is now Croatian, but was Italian when she left there as a refugee after WW2. Her short-term memory is gone, but her grasp of languages is undiminished: Croatian, Slovenian, dialect Italian, normative Italian, some German (her territory was once Austro-Hungarian Empire), Latin (which she taught, in Australia), and excellent English. They say that languages learned last are the first to go, but so far there’s no evidence of that.
She can hardly see, so I sometimes take my copy of La sacra Bibbia to read a little for her. Serves several purposes of course – one being that I can practice my spoken formal Italian, and she’s delighted to help. Corrects me instantly as needed.
I’ve missed the last couple of weeks, with an overload of editing work (grant applications for A$3M each). Must visit again soon.
Yakka is not rare at all in Ozland.
Neither in NZ.
If it’s less familiar to Young People Today, that’s because they don’t know what hard work is >shakes cane<.
Yakka is not rare at all in Ozland.
Neither in NZ.
You have both, I think, missed a vital point: the “rare” applies only to the verbal use. The noun, whose citations I quote first, is acknowledged to be thriving, especially in the phrase “hard yakka.”
Absolutely right, Hat. Tsk. Must read with more care.
Karen Sullivan and Glenda Harward-Nalder, Yagara Dictionary and Salvage Grammar (2024), note the following (pages 2–3):
Note the entries for yaga ‘do, make, work’, yagara ‘no’, and Yagara ‘Yagara’ on page 177 in the dictionary. If yaga is ‘do, make, work’, could yagara ‘no’ then simply be its negation? Apparently so. See page page 87–88 on negation by the suffix -ra in Yagara, and especially the following:
From ‘Do not!’ or from ‘(It) doesn’t do.’? I wonder if there are any parallels to simple ‘no’ < earlier ‘it doesn’t do; it doesn’t work; it won’t do’. A bit like what is seen in Turkish yok, which is both the negative existential ‘there is/are not’ and the negative ‘no’, and similarly Russian нет.
“drinks sessions” – aha. I learned it in the sense of what one person drinks (a glass or a bottle may depend on fuel consumption, but I suppose after the third it is more appropriate to discuss constellations)
I’ve seen it used both for an individual drink and “having a couple of drinks” in the evening.
Xerib: Karen Sullivan and Glenda Harward-Nalder, Yagara Dictionary and Salvage Grammar (2024 )[…]
Antipodal to Langue d’oc and Langue d’oïl.
And yaga “do, make, work” is the source of yakka?
There is an entertaining book ‘A lot of Hard Yakka’ by the former cricketer, Simon Hughes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Lot_of_Hard_Yakka
And yaga “do, make, work” is the source of yakka?
See the line about etymology in the post.
D’oh. I had even read that and wondered about a connection, but when Xerib cleared it up, I just remembered wondering.
I think we talked somewhere here once about languages named after characteristic words for a particular meaning. In Southern California some languages were called by their word for ‘hello’.
But in this case the choice of the word for “no” is taken as indication of speakers’ own identification with a certain “langauge”.
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As for our terminology… Kajkavian, Shtokavian and Chakavian dialects don’t surprise us (as would not surpise any ad hoc name based on any variable).
Perhaps with “langauges” we expect the name to be not merely ad hoc formation by linguists, but conventional among speakers of some language.
Yeah, that’s another good one.
The Californian examples are hiteʔ for Wikchamni/Yawdanchi (Yokutsan) and haminat for Kitanemuk (Uto-Aztecan). I think those were exonyms. unlike the Australian, French, and Croatian examples, those applied to unrelated languages.
I think we talked somewhere here once about languages named after characteristic words for a particular meaning
Yes. “Frafra”/”Farefare”, the usual local exonym for the (WOV-speaking) Gurunsi is one. It’s a greeting.
“Jamsay” (the largest Dogon language) is another; that one is the conventional reply (“only health”) to greetings. (It’s also notable in that it’s composed of two loanwords, the first, “health”, from Fulfulde and the other being an extremely widespread West African Wanderwort, whose ultimate origin I don’t know.)
There are quite a few other examples in West Africa, though some of them seem to be more folk etymologies than really based on actual greetings.
I see Yat has been discussed here.
Y, as I understood the first quote by Xerîb, it is not necessarily a question of names, but use of a certain word reflects conscious identification with a certain language.
@DE, if Barbarians are actualy “those who say bar-bar-bar- [blah-blah-blah] instead of normal langauge” and Berbers are actually Barbarians, then it is similar:)
I found Jandai. It appears to have been spoken on an island near South Stradbroke Island (north of the Gold Coast). I was unable to find Munjan.
Figuring out dialects/varieties/groups is difficult. I thought I was living in Kabi Kabi (Gubbi Gubbi) country. Turns out this area actually belonged to the Jinibara (named after a plant). Then there’s a Wikipedia article on the Undambi. Apparently they are regarded as being subsumed under the Kabi Kabi. Everything has now been set in stone by government policy on recognising traditional landowners but I’m still somewhat slightly sceptical. Perhaps explorers and anthropologists got it mixed up. Or perhaps classifications were always slightly fluid (not hard and fast).
A map localizing Munjan and Jandai in the Brisbane area can be found at the top of page 2 of Sullivan and Harward-Nalder here. They note this map is approximate, and they give the sources they rely on in the caption.
if Barbarians are actually “those who say bar-bar-bar- [blah-blah-blah] instead of normal language” and Berbers are actually Barbarians, then it is similar
Not really. It would only be similar if barbarians really did say “bar-bar-bar” (perhaps meaning “Die, Roman scum!” or “Beautiful day we’re having!” Or both.)
Ya fara fara in Gurenne really does mean “Greetings!” according to Niggli’s dictionary, and jam say in Jamsay actually does mean “just health”, and is the usual conventional reply to being asked how you or someone else is doing. (In Kusaal. the conventional reply to X labaar an wala? “What news of X?” is similarly always Diib ma’aa “Only food”; after which it is permissible to go on to explain just how dreadful things actually are.)
Thanks. They are both spoken on Stradbroke.
Durubal is traditionally Turrbal (as noted), which seems to be the source of the place name Toorbul (which isn’t actually in Brisbane — see Wikipedia article on “Toorbul”). Then there are the Waga-Waga (Wakka Wakka), who are further to the west from where I am.
Tindale is a major source of the traditional classification of languages and “tribal” groups, but as Sullivan and Harward-Nalder point out, his classifications have been criticised. Perhaps it was Tindale who proposed the Undambi as a separate group.
@David, one is an approximation of an individual word, the other of the whole language.
So of course the latter is going to be a bit imprecise:) Especially if it approximates all langauges of the world at once.
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“Hottentot”, by the way.
Well, it’s a step up from implying that these foreigners actually can’t talk at all, I suppose.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D0%BD%D0%B5%D0%BC%D0%B5%D1%86#Russian
Well, to a Russian ear Kabyle (y)itran ḥejben sounds like yadran khachban.
Then you average it over whole Berber and obtain (or must obtain…) barbar. Or rather it must be tabarbart. Or tabarart or tabrart – these do sound like they must be words in some Berber language.
P.S. oh. All of them are.
I’m probably the last person here to learn (just a few weeks ago) that немец is utilized for the Arabic name of Austria (and previously Austro-Hungary), an-namsā ~ an-nimsā.
Yes, this is of course totally unexpected to me as a Slavic speaker and Arabic learner, so I mentioned it a couple of times. And I think not only me:)
I’d also would love to know the stroy behind colloquial Tunisian [at least] sūri “Syrian” for what elsewhere is rūmi or furhter to the east Frankish.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/سوري#Tunisian_Arabic
Can refer to the French langauge, and in this sense it becomes somewhat more unexpected:)
Would be nice if someone collected such exonyms.
@Xerîb
Munjan is here: Nunukul, spelt “Moondjan”.
And here Nunukul language, also spelt Munjan, Moonjan, Meanjin. Sheesh
I thought “Meanjin” rang a bell; it’s the name of “Australia’s leading literary magazine” and has been referenced here more than once (e.g., in 2016).
i’ve definitely run into “yinzers” and “who-dats” in the wild; i don’t think i’ve encountered “yalls” or “youses”, which seems somehow surprising, as does the absence of a name for bostonians that has ah-liss-niss as an element.
X labaar an wala? “What news of X?”
Is labaar somehow related to Arabic xaba:r “news”?
Hausa?
https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/labari#Hausa
Is there is a particular reason why this word is so borrowable among Muslim peoples?
(Hans perhaps asked about it because of his Central Asian experience).
I think newspapers were not terribly common in the Middle Ages, but maybe it is used in religion – comparable to “good news” in Christianity except that εὐαγγέλιον, evangelium (what exact form from “angel” would mean “news”? Are there more X-αγγέλιον “Xish news” words?) were not borrowed in the sense of “news”?
Hans perhaps asked about it because of his Central Asian experience
Correct.
I feel like we’ve talked about the ‘langue de non’ approach to Aboriginal language names before, but maybe not. It goes beyond these Turrbal examples – others include Gamilaroi and Yuwalaraay.
Not surprised that Hat is most familiar with Meanjin as the name of the publication, but it’s probably more familiar now as the name for the location of central Brisbane, sometimes applied to anything else since caught up in the concept of Brisbane.
As for yakka, definitely a familiar word, although I feel I’d be slightly surprised to here it outside the phrase “hard yakka”.
we’ve talked about the ‘langue de non’ approach to Aboriginal language names before: e.g., briefly in the post on Yugambeh, which is another of them.
Gamilaroi and Yuwalaraay: according to this page on Gamilaroi, the baraay suffix means “having” (i.e., ‘No’-having), with the b dropped after an l. It also says that this naming system was already in place before Europeans arrived — Gamilaroi was surrounded by several other neighboring ‘No’-baraay languages — and “Other Australian languages have different naming systems, e.g. using their words for ‘go’ or ‘this’.”
Chapter 49 of the Oxford Guide to Australian Languages, by Rosenberg and Bowern, discusses and classifies the many language naming strategies on that continent. They coin the expression shibbolethnonym for what we’ve been discussing (I’m not sure how I feel about that word.) The commonest ones in Pama-Nyungan are based on ‘no’, ‘this’, and ‘go’, sometimes using the shibboleth alone, sometimes with extra morphemes, like ‘-having’ or ‘language’.
For example, of thirteen Yolngu languages, six are named after the word for ‘this’ (Nhangu, Dhangu, Djangu, Dhuwal, Dhuwala), one means ‘this-language’ (Yan-nhangu), and the rest are unanalyzable clan names.
Is labaar somehow related to Arabic xaba:r “news”?
Yes, definitely. It’s incorporated the preceding definite article, which happens very commonly with Arabic loans in West African languages. (Happens with French loans, too, e.g. Kusaal lampɔ “tax.”)
Kusaal probably did borrow it from Hausa in the first instance, as PP suggests. Mooré has kibare, from the Arabic without the article and a different treatment of the Arabic root-initial consonant (plural kibaya, fitted into the noun class system by analogy, as usual for loanword nominals in Oti-Volta.)
Kusaal /h/ is fairly marginal as a phoneme, and is only found in syllable-initial position; [h] is common as an allophone of non-initial /s/, though, and /h/ and similar consonants in this position are often represented by Kusaal /s/, as in Alaasid (daar) “Sunday.”
Mooré kibare is probably borrowed from Dyula; Dyula seems to be a commoner channel than Hausa for words of Arabic origin to fetch up in Mooré. Unsurprising, as Dyula is the other major African interlanguage of Burkina Faso, especially in the western half of the country.