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The Word Kangaroo
A Wrong Idea
When I was a
child in England, we were taught that when the Europeans of Captain
Cook’s expedition saw kangaroos, Sir Joseph Banks, the botanist, asked
the native people what the name of that animal was. The people of Australia did not
understand English, so they said, in their own language, “I do not
understand you”. The English
heard the word as “Kangaroo” and thought that this referred to the
animal they were asking about.
So the name Kangaroo stuck.
A Gentleman and a Scholar
However, Sir
Joseph Banks was not only a botanist, but he was also an accomplished
linguist. To suggest that he
would make such an elementary mistake is an unhistorical libel of a
gentleman and a scholar.
Another Marsupial
It is also not
consistent with other things that happened.
One of the first Marsupials that was seen by the people of this
expedition was a small tree climbing animal.
Marsupials are almost unknown outside Australia and New Guinea, but
Captain Cook was widely travelled.
He was familiar with the Opossum of America, and recognised the
similarity of the two animals.
The Australian animal they found is now called a Possum.
A Better Explanation
I prefer another
explanation of the word kangaroo.
Assuming that the type of Kangaroo the English saw was an Eastern Grey,
the people speaking their Guugu Yiidhirr language would have called it a
gungurru meaning Grey Kangaroo.
Naturally, the people living in Australia had separate names for the
different types of Kangaroo. The English heard the word as Kangaroo, but
did not at first realise that there were many species of Kangaroo, and
the word is now used for the whole group.
The Family
The Kangaroo
group is known as the Macropods, meaning "Large
Footed".
Scientifically they are of the family Macropodidae.
This family includes the Kangaroos, Wallaroos, Wallabies, Rock
Wallabies, Tree Kangaroos, Pademelons, Nail Tail Kangaroos, Quokka, Hare-wallabies, Bettongs, Potoroos and Rat-kangaroos.
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Kangaroo
