AUSSIE WORDS: DIDGERIDOO

AN IRISH SOUND IN AUSTRALIA

DYMPHNA LONERGAN

‘The Didgeridoo is the sound of Australia’. Few would argue with this claim made on the Aboriginal Art and Culture Internet web page (‘Aboriginal Art and Culture’: <http://www.aboriginalart.com.au>, date accessed 4 May, 2002). The sound of the didgeridoo is distinctive in the world of musical instruments. The difficulty in creating the sound may be one of the reasons why the playing of the didgeridoo is still not commonplace in Australia outside of traditional Aboriginal communities. The sound of the didgeridoo is definitively Australian; however, what is not so definite is the origin of the name.

The Australian National Dictionary records the first citations for the word didgeridoo as appearing in 1919, surprisingly late in the history of European Australia. In that year the Huon Times (Franklin) refers to the instrument as a Diridgery doo. The magazine Smith’s Weekly (Sydney) in the same year, describes the sound of the instrument: didjerry, didjerry, didjerry. In 1924 the Bulletin (Sydney) provides Didjeridoo—didgeredoo! A 1967 entry quotes F.T. Macartney who suggested that the name didgeridoo is not an Aboriginal word and argued that it ‘was very likely invented in imitation of the sound the instrument makes’. This view was repeated in 1990 in the discussion of the word in Australian Aboriginal Words in English (R.M.W.Dixon, W.S. Ramson, and Mandy Thomas, Melbourne: Oxford University Press). The didgeridoo instrument is found mainly in the upper half of Australia. As there are many Aboriginal languages in Australia, so there are numerous Aboriginal words for this musical instrument. Some examples are: bambi, bombo, illpera and yidali. None of these words, however, resembles the word didgeridoo.

Even if the word didgeridoo is not from an Australian language, it still sounds ‘Australian’. It resembles other familiar Australian names, such as cockatoo, jackeroo, kangaroo, socceroo, and place names such as Woolloomooloo. It may, indeed, have been coined under that influence. The claim that the word didgeridoo is ‘imitative’ is a curious one in retrospect. The sound of the word didgeridoo hardly represents the repetitive ‘drone’ or ‘hum’ that we associate with the instrument. In order to test this theory, I conducted a small survey in which I asked participants to ‘write in letters the sound of the didgeridoo’. The results are as follows:

Derrrr

Mwaaahhh Briheehe Mawawworr

Mwoooowowoowoopwoopwooooommmnoop woooowwoooooow

Blum-to-to-to

Mmmberrrrrr

wahaawaa

ooommm

brrr-ri!

Ngnn! nya nya

Nynn!

boing

ooowahooyeeoowooo

wurr! wurr! woww!

Doo ooo ooo Dooo oo Doooom ooom Dooo

Brrowwwwwwhewheerroouw

oo aa oo aa

mmm...

waaaaaaaaaaaaaanrm

bwarrararra cucucubwrww

Baarroooowoooowoooowawooo

mmmwoobwoob woob wah woo woo woo

mmmmmmn,

mirbooh

moooonarau

erranamabraera

mmrrrmmrrrmrrmr

Mowowerrmowromdoodoodoodoowmowermrm

Most respondents represented the sound of the didgeridoo in a series of letters starting with the letter ‘m’. The next popular choice was the letter ‘b’. None of these respondents produced letters similar to the word didgeridoo. I suggest that those who produced the letters Derrrr and Doo ooo ooo etc. may have been influenced by the word didgeridoo. It could be argued that the word didgeridoo does not appear to represent the sound of the instrument and so is not ‘imitative’. If the word didgeridoo is not really imitative of the sound of the instrument and is not a word from an Australian language, where does it come from?

Both Irish and Scots Gaelic have the word dúdaire which cognates with the word dúid, ‘a pipe’. The word dúdaire is used in the English of Ireland today to mean ‘an incessant pipe smoker’ or ‘an inquisitive person’ (Diarmaid Ó Muirithe, A Dictionary of Anglo-Irish, Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1996). Niall Ó Dónaill’s (1977) Irish English Dictionary (Foclóir Gaelige-Béarla, Baile Átha Cliath: Oifig an tSoláthair, 1977) refers to ‘a long-nosed person’ and the sound of ‘crooning’ or ‘droning’. Dineen’s 1904 Irish–English dictionary provides as a translation of dúdaire ‘a trumpeter or horn-blower, blowing of a horn, act of crooning or humming’ (Rev. Patrick S. Dineen, Foclóir Gaedilge, Dublin: M.H. Gill and Son Ltd). Malcolm Maclennan’s Gaelic Dictionary (Edinburgh: Acair Press,1979) provides the translation ‘trumpeter’. The word dúdaire is a tri-syllabic word, pronounced, roughly, dooderreh or doodjerreh. Irish and Scots Gaelic also have the words dubh ‘black’, pronounced duv or doo and the word dúth ‘native or hereditary’, also pronounced doo. It may be that Irish or Scots Gaelic speakers gave the name dúdaire dubh or dúdaire dúth (pronounced doodereh doo or doodjerreh doo) to the person playing the native instrument and that the word became associated with the instrument. This theory would explain the curious incompatibility between the word didgeridoo and the sound of the instrument. It would also explain why this Australian-sounding name has been denied that origin by linguists.

Finally, the Irish Aboriginal didgeridoo connection has been reciprocal, in that Aboriginal Australia has assisted the Irish in solving one of the mysteries of their ancient instruments. The Bronze Age horns of Ireland had been silent for hundreds of years until a London professor saw a comparison with other ethnic instruments, including the didgeridoo. Subsequently, Simon O’Dwyer in Ireland took the challenge up and was successful in bringing the sound of the Bronze Age horns out using the technique for playing the didgeridoo (Prehistoric Music Ireland. <http://homepage.tinet.ie>). So, in a sense the wheel has come full circle. The Irish may be credited with giving to Australia a universal name for a native instrument, but Australia has given back to Ireland an historically lost sound.

[Dymphna Lonergan is researching a PhD thesis in the English Department at Flinders University on the Irish language in Australia.]