BS: Is a Yarraman an Austrlian horse?

Subject: BS: Is a Yarraman an Austrlian horse?
From: Mo the caller
Date: 30 Dec 05 - 07:31 AM

My crossword clue says "Impressive collbacked by chap with Australian horse (8)
array backed = yarra
chap = man
google tells me there are Austrlian towns Yarra & Yarraman but is it also a horse?

Subject: RE: BS: Is a Yarraman an Austrlian horse?
From: alanabit
Date: 30 Dec 05 - 07:35 AM

I don't know. But it's the only bloody thing that makes sense in the crossword!

Subject: RE: BS: Is a Yarraman an Austrlian horse?
From: GUEST,Googler
Date: 30 Dec 05 - 07:38 AM

There ya go!

Subject: RE: BS: Is a Yarraman an Austrlian horse?
From: Mo the caller
Date: 30 Dec 05 - 07:44 AM

Thanks, maybe I used Wiki not google before

Subject: RE: BS: Is a Yarraman an Austrlian horse?
From: GUEST,A
Date: 30 Dec 05 - 08:11 AM

Yarraman is also a word for 'wild horse'. I admire poeple who are diligent regarding crosswords. I would like to think I don't have the patience but it might be due to intellect also.

Subject: RE: BS: Is a Yarraman an Austrlian horse?
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 31 Dec 05 - 12:34 AM

G'day Mo the caller (et al),

"Yarraman" is long established in English - Aboriginal interchanges as "horse" ... but is hard to pin down to a specific indigenous language. It starts off early in the British settlement ... but with the British thinking it was a broadly used Aboriginal word and most language groups assuming it was the English word!

It is probably "yiraman" from an Aboriginal language south of the first settlement in the Sydney area ... meaning "long teeth" ... but these Indigenous groups bore the brunt of dispossession, disease and displacement of their hunter/gatherer territories ... and we can't draw on any surviving local language-speakers.

Regards,

Bob