Hi all,
I know James has said he is not interested in the use of 'chook' in the
meaning of 'chicken' but this is for anyone is interested in the etymology
of 'chook' in that sense.
It seems to me that most people assume that the word chook is a
modification of the word chicken, but I am not sure this is the case.
I grew up in Ireland and while not a native Irish (i.e. 'Gaelic') speaker,
there were numerous Irish words which had survived into common daily usage.
As a little lad I (and everyone else in Ireland who had chickens) would call
the chickens for feeing by repeatedly calling the word 'tioc' which is the
Irish for 'come' and pronounced 'chook'. Nobody referred to the chickens as
chooks, though: it was just the word used to call them. The chickens were
well acclimatised to this and would know it was feeding time when they heard
that call.
(Now that I think about it, amuses me to remember that people would commonly
stretch out occasional 'tioc' so that the effect was a 'chooooook, chook,
chook, chook, chook, choooooook, chook, chook etc. etc. with the result of
actually sounding like a chicken.)
This bit is pure speculation but I imagine that the early Irish keepers of
chickens in Aus used the same call, and non-Irish speaking locals may have
thought they were calling the chickens 'chooks' rather than calling TO the
chickens to 'come' for their meal.
Regards,
Paul.
|
