COLD DARK ROOM

Tidgy's Dad

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@AZtortMom
Hi, Noel, I don't think you've visited My Cold Dark Room yet.
Please find a nice dry corner, pull up an armadillo, grab a coffee and be as silly as you like.
If it's not your cup of tea, that's fine a hedgehog will drink it.
Welcome.
 

Lyn W

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Bit quiet in here tonight, though it was busy earlier.
I'm happy, too, usually.
Yes I popped in earlier and then my computer decided to update me to winows10 and that took absolutely ages and the took me absolutely ages to find my way around again so I've come back and thought everyone was having an early night
 

Tidgy's Dad

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Yes I popped in earlier and then my computer decided to update me to winows10 and that took absolutely ages and the took me absolutely ages to find my way around again so I've come back and thought everyone was having an early night
Well, it's really early in America, though meech has popped in.
Did you have Windows 8 then ?
 

Lyn W

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There is a beautiful full moon here tonight but the temps have dropped - down to 3'C in Sennybridge tonight!!
What is going on??
 

spud's_mum

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Well I didn't get to make spuds food today... Looks last a frantic last minute trip to the shops before I go tomorrow. The trouble is, the bagged stuff is mostly lettuce :(
I suppose I can get some rocket. ALL other suggestions welcome on what I can feed him from a shop!!!!!!!
 

Tidgy's Dad

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Adam where did you read kangaroo means horse?
Goodness, I can't reveal my sources!
But seriously, if you look up the meaning of kangaroo in original aborigine you will find that it only existed in the one language, Guugu (Gugu) Yimidhiir also know as Koko which was the language used only by the people around Botany Bay. It refers specifically to the grey kangaroo.
This is why when Cooks men arrived in 1770 they were told the name was kangaroo.
Obviously, the story about "i don't know', wasn't true as they did have a name for this common local animal.
Check the Jukurrpa Pocket Book of Aboriginal Languages, for example.
You can also see in this and lots of places on the net that there were about 250 aboriginal languages and 500 dialects at this time and many of them were not related to each other.
Check the Australian Bureau of Statistics for more info on languages then and later when the first settlers arrived and compare the languages spoken in the different areas. Also this will show you how the number of languages has declined drastically to the present day. They have a website abs.gov.au.and you can e-mail them too.
When the first British settlers began arriving from 1788, they did not all live in the same area and due to the research done by Cook and others, for example Cook's own journals, available in volume form and very good reads, some of the more educated setters (not usually the criminals) had done their research and were fascinated by drawings of the kangaroo and head learned the name, assuming incorrectly that all aborigines would speak the same language.
Now if you look up in Aboriginal languages the Begangi aboriginal language, kangaroo means horse (you can do this on the net).
The Begangi of course, had no word for horse before the Europeans brought them as they are not native to Australia and they have their own words for kangaroos so why did they call horses kangaroos ?
Because they learned the word from the British and got muddled up.
If you check modern aboriginal usage of the word, you will see, of course that the Aborigines call kangaroos, kangaroos when they are speaking in English, as most of them now do, and often only English as most don't speak their native tongues fluently but in the majority of languages between the start of the 19th century onwards the word had spread to mean horse in most of the now lost and extant languages.
 
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