billabong

1. A dead-end channel extending from the main stream of a river.
2. A streambed filled with water only in the rainy season.
3. A stagnant pool or backwater.

[Wiradhuri (Aboriginal language of southeast Australia) bilabanj, watercourse filled only after rain.]

It's an endangered species. There are only half as many billabongs in Australia now as there were in 1895, when they were immortalized in the first line of the song that was destined to become the country's unofficial national anthem. The song begins like this, in the original version by Andrew Barton "Banjo" Paterson:

A swagman was an itinerant sheep shearer, a coolibah a eucalyptus, a billy a tin can, and waltzing Matilda going on a walking journey with just your pack on your back. But the billabong? No, it's not a name for the great Australian desert, nor a sacred place where ancient rituals once were performed. The last stanza of "Waltzing Matilda" translates it simply as "waterhole." A billabong is a still backwater next to a river. When the river floods, it fills the billabong and flushes it out. The dams used in modern flood control have cut off and dried up more than half the billabongs in Australia, according to one estimate.

The word billabong is consequently endangered too, except for its good fortune in being enshrined in a happy song with a sad story about a swagman who commits suicide rather than give up the sheep he bagged when it came to drink at his billabong. Billabong is attested in English as early as 1865, thirty years before "Waltzing Matilda" was written.

The language from which it came is almost extinct; a 1981 survey located only three speakers of Wiradhuri, an aboriginal language belonging to the Pama-Nyungan branch of the Australian language family and spoken just over the mountains in New South Wales. In the nineteenth century, Wiradhuri also gave English the name kookaburra (1890) for a peculiar bird, a kingfisher with a cry that earned it the nickname "laughing jackass."

The noun has 2 meanings:

Meaning #1: (Australian) a stagnant pool of water in the bed of a stream that flows intermittently

Meaning #2: a branch of a river running to a dead end

This article is about the Australian word for a type of lake. For other uses, see Billabong (disambiguation).

Yellow Water Billabong, Kakadu National Park

Billabong Australian English word meaning a small lake, specifically an oxbow lake, a section of still water adjacent to a river, cut off by a change in the watercourse, cf. an oxbow lake.^[1] Billabongs are usually formed when the path of a creek or river changes, leaving the former branch with a dead end. Despite some claims of a Scottish Gaelic origin,^[2] the word is most likely from the Wiradjuri term bilabaŋ.^[3][4]

Billabongs appear relatively often in Australian literature. One of the most prominent references is in the opening line of Banjo Paterson's famous folk song "Waltzing Matilda".

Also a brand of clothing.

References

1. ^ Clarke, R. "Australianisms in 'Waltzing Matilda'", Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd, 10 December 2003. Last accessed 5 November 2009.
2. ^ Skilton, St J. "The Survey of Scottish Gaelic in Australia and New Zealand", p. 300, quoting a respondent to his survey: "'Bill' = 'bile' = 'lip or mouth' and 'abong' is from 'abhainn' = 'river' with a parasitic 'G' added. A billabong probably has a mouth shape of sorts being at a bend in a river." University of Fribourg, Switzerland, June 2004. Last accessed 15 March 2008.
3. ^ Ludowyk, F. "Of Billy, Bong, Bung, & 'Billybong'", Australian National University, no date. Last accessed 15 March 2008.
4. ^ "Merriam-Webster Dictionary Online". Last accessed 15 March 2008.

This article relating to a topographical term is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v • d • e

This Australia-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v • d • e

http://issuu.com/j.broder

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)