{"id":5730,"date":"2011-06-29T11:06:30","date_gmt":"2011-06-29T00:06:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.paradisec.org.au\/blog\/?p=5730"},"modified":"2011-07-06T09:19:51","modified_gmt":"2011-07-05T22:19:51","slug":"what%e2%80%99s-a-warrambool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.paradisec.org.au\/blog\/2011\/06\/what%e2%80%99s-a-warrambool\/","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s a Warrambool?"},"content":{"rendered":"

‘What\u2019s a Warrambool?’ asks one<\/del> Rob Brennan<\/ins> in Westprint Friday Five 2011.6.24<\/a> (Replies from others are now in Westprint Friday Five 2011.7.1<\/a>.)<\/span> The usual English dictionaries are no help, not even the AND<\/em><\/a>. Warrambool<\/em> is a good example of a word borrowed from an Australian language into local English, but which, although well-known in its region, has not spread through Australian English (or beyond!).<\/p>\n

The Westprint editor actually has the answer for her correspondent:<\/p>\n

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Wikipedia wasn’t much help either except it shows a map featuring the Namoi river with a number of different warrambools’ that appear to be akin to breakouts from, or small creeks running into the Namoi.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The best published answer is the entry in the <\/span><\/span>Gamilaraay, Yuwaalaraay & Yuwaalayaay dictionary<\/em><\/a> (2002:139)<\/p>\n

warrambul<\/strong> (YR, YY, GR) ((The two-letter codes denote the three named varieties ‘\u2014 in the linguistic sense they are all dialects of a single language’ (2002<\/a>:21) )) noun<\/em>
\n1<\/strong> watercourse (overflow channel) (YR, YY, GR). The name is used to refer to overflow channels which have water only during flood times. The name is used on road signs, e.g. Big Warrambool.
\n2<\/strong> Milky Way (YR, YY).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The word was published as early as 1875 in William Ridley’s K\u00e1milar\u00f3i, and other Australian languages<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

p.26: watercourse : w\u0101rumb\u016bl
\np.141:\u00a0 worrumb\u016bl : grove with a watercourse running through it, Milky Way<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There’s a bit more to it. The topographic features to which the word refers are not spread across all the Gamilaraay\/ Yuwaalaraay\/ Yuwaalayaay (GY) region, but are confined to the western part, primarily the Yuwaalaraay area.\u00a0 This can be seen in the range of the 34 placenames involving ‘Warrambool’ in the Geographical Names Register (GNR) of NSW<\/a> plus the one over the Queensland border ((The Big Warrambool, from the Geoscience Australia Gazetteer<\/a>)):<\/p>\n


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