Here are some fun facts about Sydney Australia, just to whet your appetite.
The word kangaroo is an Australian Aboriginal word meaning, “I don’t understand you”.
The word 'budgerigar' means, 'Good to eat' in Aboriginal.
Some English settler must have pointed to a kangaroo and asked an Aborigine what it was called in Aboriginal language.
The Aborigine had no idea what the white man was asking him, so he replied “kangaroo” which meant, “I don’t understand”.
The white man thought he was real clever. He went back to his friends and told them, hey gentlemen, the name for that strange jumping animal, it’s “kangaroo”. That’s what the natives call it.
Wasn’t that dumb of him?
Another of my fun facts about Sydney Australia is… The name budgerigar, a small Australian parrot, is another Aboriginal word. It means “good to eat”.
Weren’t these early British settlers somewhat arrogant and stupid? Even the educated men of the day made some very ignorant assumptions. There was a terrible lack of communication.
Many of these British settlers were men who wore three-piece suits in the tropical heat. The navy and army personnel wore clothing suited to an entirely different climate, as did all of the colonizing European immigrants. Amazingly, they believed the Aborigines were ignorant because they walked around naked… and they thought they were lazy because they had the good sense to lounge around in the shade all day instead of busting a gut pushing a plough to do western-style agriculture on a dry and fragile land.
Let’s face it, times were a bit different 200 years ago. American settlers thought the Native Americans were dumb as well. The white men just couldn’t understand the vast cultural differences. But they had the guns, just as we did here in Australia. And when you’ve got rifles and the other guys have spears or bows and arrows, the other guys lose… don’t they? And that’s no fun, either.
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