pfella
Australian Aboriginal Pidgin English for 'fellow' — a man or bloke.
Definitions
Australian Aboriginal Pidgin English for 'fellow' — a man or bloke. The term appears in historical records of Aboriginal-Australian and colonial-era pidgin English spoken across northern and central Australia. Like many pidgin forms, it adapted English words to local phonology and was used as a lingua franca between Aboriginal communities and non-Aboriginal Australians. Today it appears mainly in historical texts and linguistic studies rather than everyday speech, though traces persist in some remote community varieties of Australian English.
The old stockmen's diaries recorded conversations where Aboriginal stockhands would refer to each other as 'pfella' in the camp pidgin of the era.
Comments
(Australia, Australian Aboriginal) A fellow.
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