Origins:
Becoming common in Australian slang around the early 1900s (written evidence first appearing in 1904 in the Bulletin), this phrase has a couple of contreversial possible origins, which should hopefully be cleared up soon (well not completely cleared up).
Similar to Fair dinkum bonza also has a false legend of coming from Chinese immigrants, again with supposed origins of being cantonese, meaning "good gold". Unfortunately this theory has proved unfounded as research shows that no Cantonese words associated with gold or good can evolve to be pronounced as 'bonza'.
Instead the origins of bonza seems to come half way round the world, in Spain. Specifically during the 1850's Australia's goldrush occurred and miners from California brought over the phrase bonanza which has it's true origins in the Spanish word bonanzo meaning "fair weather; prosperity", originally comming from the Latin word bonus meaning "good". (and yes that does seem to be origins of that extra pay at the end of the year)
Just to throw some spanners into the works some possible alternative origins come about from some believing that bonza is actually a concatination of born star or coming instead from a game of marbles, in Lincolnshire (1877) the larger marble was called a bouncer (for obvious reasons), and in both New Zealand and Australia the word bouncer was slowly corrupted to become bonser or bonzer..
References:
- Word to the Wize
- A Bonzer Conundrum (a complete thesis on the origins of Bonza)
Note: Given the reoccuring theme of introduced Chinese phrases to Australian slang, I am very curious to hear of any actual cross cultural phrases. (so far the origins of possible phrases have proved unfounded)
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