Today's word is described as "origin unknown". Speakers of Dutch and related languages always notice the "ui" diphthong which doesn't seem to occur in any other languages; here it would seem to be a vernacular version of "spreek", Dutch for "speak".
That’s interesting, I hadn’t thought about it before, but I have understood that ‘duiker’ (a type of antelope?) is pronounced ‘dyka’, not ‘dooka’ and wouldn’t that imply that ‘spruik’ is pronounced as ‘spryke’, not ‘sprook’ as Wordsmith proposes? Or is there a difference here between Dutch and Afrikaans?
I don’t speak Dutch, but I see a lot of it written down and I’m often struck by the ‘ij’ combination that comes out similar to an English ‘y’.
There's a cool thread on this in Weekly Themes; not trying to shut this one down, but y'all ought to look there for further info. on this topic.
Yes "ui" is a typical Dutch diphtong, but there are other derivations of spreken = to talk, to speak that make a better fit for the meaning given.
What about sprookje = fairy tale, or toespraak = oration?
Google mentioned that it was an Australian term. Maybe spruik is their bastardization of sprookje To my ears, Australian English has an enormous amount of diphtongs. Jacqueline BdJ
