'Fair dinkum' is the most Australian phrase there is. Thoroughly homegrown. Probably Aboriginal in origin, picked up by colonial bushmen, polished into a national catchphrase. The bloke at the pub will tell you 'dinkum' is a Yagara word, or Wiradjuri, or one of the others, meaning 'true' or 'genuine.' It's our word for honest. It's so Australian it might as well have a Southern Cross tattooed on it.
It's English. Specifically, Lincolnshire English. 'Dinkum' is a 19th-century Lincolnshire dialect word meaning 'work,' as in 'hard dinkum,' fair work for fair pay. It travelled to Australia with English miners during the gold rushes of the 1850s, drifted in meaning to mean 'genuine' or 'true,' and got naturalised so completely that within two generations no one remembered where it came from. It is in the Oxford English Dictionary with a Lincolnshire derivation, attested in English usage before any Australian one. There are Aboriginal English phrases that did become broadly Australian, 'cooee' is one, 'yakka' is another, and 'bung' for broken. 'Dinkum' isn't on that list. The phrase is an English import that Australia kept and the English forgot. Which is, on reflection, an authentically Australian thing to have happened.
Reception
Sources
- Oxford English Dictionary: dinkum REFERENCE
- Macquarie Dictionary: dinkum REFERENCE