ghonya, noun

/ˈɡɒnjə/, /ˈɡɔnjə/, /ˈxɔnjə/
Forms:
ghoonya, gonyaShow more Also ghoonya, gonya, khonia.
Origin:
IsiXhosa, IsiZuluShow more Adaptation of isiXhosa and isiZulu umkhonyo, umkhonya a bladder grasshopper, from khonya (of a bladder grasshopper) make a shrill noise.
Especially in the Eastern Cape: blaasop sense 1. Also attributive.
1869 W.G. Atherstone in R. Noble Cape & its People 367The ‘Ghonya’ — one of the pneumora — is that extraordinary inflated ghost of a green grasshopper...His colonized name is derived from his cry — ‘Ghonya-ghonya,’ often heard on moonlight nights.
1893 Trans. of S. Afr. Phil. Soc. VIII. i. p.xxii (Pettman)The male is familiar to residents in the Eastern Districts by the Kaffir name of ghonya as well as by the very loud and prolonged noise which he makes at night.
1897 E. Glanville Tales from Veld 129The ghon-ya from the darkness called again, as if the sorrows of the world were in the cry.
1909 ‘Somgxada’ in E. London Dispatch 8 Jan. 5A large kind of grasshopper, called by the natives ‘umkonya,’ a name which is intended to represent its call. The same name, though with an introductory guttural, — ‘ghonya’ — is used by the Colonists also.
1914 W.C. Scully Lodges in Wilderness 219The strangers..set offerings before me. These consisted of ghoonyas, and nothing else. What did these people take me for; did they suppose I lived on a ghoonya diet — that I fed my caravan on ghoonya soup?
1974 Radio South Africa 29 Oct. (Talking of Nature)Ghonya is the name given to them in the Eastern Cape — I think it’s from the Xhosa. The Afrikaans word is blaasop.
1975 Afr. Wildlife Vol.29 No.1 (Toktokkie) 1In South Africa we have some very strange grasshoppers called ‘Bulla — or Bladder-Locusts’ or ‘Khonias’ known to scientists as pneumorids. The abdomen of the male is thin and filled with air..and on each side there is a row of ridges. These..are rubbed by small points or ridges on the inside of the hind legs to make sounds which are magnified by the inflated abdomen.
Especially in the Eastern Cape: blaasop sense 1. Also attributive.
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18691975

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IsiXhosa
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ghommaliedjie, nounn.Ghost Squad, noun phrasen. phr.
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