Whence
Kookaburra (the word)
Word

Where does Kookaburra (the word) come from?

The word kookaburra comes from central New South Wales, in inland Australia. It was borrowed from guuguubarra in Wiradjuri, the language of the Wiradjuri people, and the name imitates the bird's famous laughing call.

A name that copies the call

Wiradjuri is a Pama–Nyungan language, the traditional language of the Wiradjuri people of New South Wales. Its word for the bird, guuguubarra, is onomatopoeic: it echoes the call itself. The Australian Museum writes that call as a loud 'koo-koo-koo-koo-koo-kaa-kaa-kaa', often sung in chorus by a whole family. It sounds like laughter, but it is really a territorial call that warns other kookaburras to stay away, and it is heard most often at dawn and dusk.

Once the 'laughing jackass'

English settlers first gave the bird other names. 'Laughing Jack-Ass' appears in 1798 in David Collins's account of the colony of New South Wales, and in the 19th century laughing jackass was the usual name. Ornithologists also used 'great brown kingfisher', coined by John Latham in 1782, and 'laughing kingfisher'. Kookaburra took over later: Merriam-Webster dates its first known use in English to 1834, but only in 1926 did Australia's ornithologists officially adopt the name laughing kookaburra.

A kingfisher away from water

Kookaburras are large tree kingfishers of the genus Dacelo, and unlike many kingfishers they are not closely tied to water. The laughing kookaburra is native to eastern mainland Australia, from dry eucalypt forest to city parks, and it hunts insects, worms, frogs, lizards and small snakes by pouncing from a perch. The Wiradjuri language that named it is being revived: it is taught in schools, helped by a first Wiradjuri dictionary published in 2005.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org › Kookaburra ↗ · en.wikipedia.org › Laughing kookaburra ↗ · merriam-webster.com ↗ · australian.museum ↗ · en.wikipedia.org › Wiradjuri language ↗

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