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Australia America, Australia, and parakeets / budgies

SonicexA

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Hi all ye human beings from the wide, wide world outside of the great sunburnt country Australia, I just wanted to say, you know how Americans have decided to call the charming little pet bird budgerigar (native to Australia) parakeets? They are native to Australia, and here, we call them budgies. We don't call your native animals different names - so why change ours?

Anyway, didn't want to start an argument, just saying. :eek:
 

bpatters

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You might want to do a little research. It came from an old French word, paroquet, through Italian as perrochetto, to Spanish as periquito, and to parakeet in English in the mid 1500's. Long before anyone in this country would have had parakeets. So no, we didn't change the name of your budgies.
 

SonicexA

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...
Stopped dead with research - ouch.


Maybe I should have done some research but there's also the fact that we call them budgies and saying 'parakeet' in an Australian accent is way less funny than 'budgerigar', and don't we all love laughing at our accent?

(Just btw I wasn't being sore I know the Aussie accent is hilarious that's why we love it. We just don't love it when non-Aussies try it, as it always turns out badly.
;) )
 
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