Origin of the word Kangaroo

Here is a story I learnt yesterday.  I liked it so much I thought I would share it with you.



On 7 June 1770 Lieutenant (Captain) James Cook and Joseph Banks had noted in the ships diary that they had seen smoke from campfires ashore on the right of the ship, and some large canoes and several people as they passed a number of islands which we now know as Magnetic Island and then the Palm Island group. Later that month Joseph Banks documented a sighting of campfires at when anchored off Yarrabah in North Queensland. Cook later claimed to take possession of the whole east coast of Australia by raising the British flag at Possession Island off the tip of Cape York Peninsula.

Perhaps the most famous and first Aboriginal word ever documented is ‘ganguru’ from the Guugu Yimithirr language near Cooktown. Although it originates from an Aboriginal language of northern Queensland, it has become the name for Australia’s iconic fauna. Lieutenant (Captain) James Cook and his botanist Joseph Banks saw a large grey native animal bouncing across the landscape in 1770,

"One of the men saw an animal something less than a grey hound, it was of a Mouse Colour very slender made and swift of foot."

They heard the local people utter the word ‘gangurru’, and wrote ‘kanguru’, now spelt kangaroo.