Re: OT Academia (was Re: Dr. Gunn)

CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU writes:
>True, and a similar problem with the Aborigines. Although people often
>call all the Indigenous people of Australia 'Koorie' when trying to be
>politically correct, but the Koorie are just a group from South-Eastern
>Australia somewhere. Or a name for the entire culture in South-Eastern
>Australia, can't remember. The only thing I know about their names for
>White people is that the first time they saw white people, they thought
>we were ghosts. Although I would've thought ghosts be dark-skinned if
>they were the ghosts of Aborigines.
>
>Tristan.

Getting a bit off track, do Australians tend to pick one word to describe
all similar native things, such as your example?

An example is the term for the a specific cycad from the genus Macrozamia
(M. communis). The term "Burrawang" (Barawang) is used to refer to many
cycads (in Macrozamia, Lepidozamia, and Cycas). However, the term is from
the Dharuk language of the Sydney/Illawara region and applied only to M.
communis, but has been applied to the previously mentioned genuses.


__________________________
Communication is not just words, communication is...architecture
because of course it is quite obvious that  the house that would be built
without that desire, that desire to communicate, would not look as your
house does today.

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