Query: Australian Slang

[jeriendhal]

Can any of our Friends Down Under give me a prefereably semi-nasty bit of slang used by native Australians to describe their white neighbors?

Not that this has anything to do with the previous post, mind you... :)

Comments

[iosef.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure that there are any that really count:
"White Fella" is self explanatory,
"Gubbyman" is a borrow word for an official, corrupted from "government"
Otherwise they tend to use standard profanity because it is personal rather that racial.I've never met a Koori racist.

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I'll try to work them in somewhere. The latter particularly suits one fellow that might be showing up.

[glenbarnett.livejournal.com]

I can't recall any racist terms commonly used by aboriginals either (Koori or otherwise).

Note that Koori is a relatively local word used mostly in southeastern Australia and is not acceptable to aboriginal people from other parts of the country, where they have other terms.

"White Fella" is certainly not derogatory, but it is common.

There are derogatory terms for white anglo Australians (for example), but it's other immigrants who use them (and they're not very derogatory; I call myself a skip regularly).

[iosef.livejournal.com]

Sorry: I should have mentioned I'm from Victoria so those I have been closest to are Koori. I have worked a little with the Centralian peoples too but have no personal knowledge of eithe the Queensland or WA peoples.

[glenbarnett.livejournal.com]

Gubba also has been said to come from "garbage" but it's more likely to have come from governor (though government is another possibility). It's slightly derogatory, but not something anyone is likley to take offence over.

I just did a search and came upon "ABC". I've never heard it myself, but it's very derogatory. I would guess it doesn't get used much.