Hey everyone,
I was just curious as to what the word for the insect, known as the "firefly" in English, is in other languages.
In Jamaican Creole it's "Piiniwaali"
Never seen/read the spelling you used, but peenie wallie is related to the word peelie wallie from the Scottish dialect. In the Scottish dialect, it refers to a person who's pale/ill-looking. The fireflies give off a pale-whitish/ yellowish light and some make a sound when they flap thier wings or when they fly about, making a thud-like sound upon bumping into stuff. It started out in the early nineteenth century as the single word
peelie for a person who is thin, gaunt or pale. As cited from the dictionary, "Dictionaries usually suggest it as an imitation of a slight, high-pitched sound, perhaps a noise that someone in distress might make. If so, it’s linked to another imitative Scots word,
peek, for the feeble cry of a small bird, animal and insect noise or whimper of complaint, or an insignificant person with a piping voice", (Quintion 1999). Scottish-Jamaicans started using the term and it became widespread. It's not just Patois slang, but is also Standard Jamaican English.