verbs related to objeets and actions of ordinary occurrence.
The following examples will be sufficient.
English, Swan River. K. George's
_ Sound.
South Australia, . Sidney.
Water Kowin Koin Kowe. . Ko-koin,
Wood Kalla Kal Karla Kollal
jfnfoke ijqoyop Póoü Pûiyü Potto"
The hand Mura Mürr7 Murra Muttürïa ’’
Thé ëye • Mail Mil Mena ' Muel '
The tongue Tdallung Tdallung Tadlunga r Tullun
The foot Tjenna Tjenna Tidnn Tinna
Tosee.ortóknöw Nayo* Naykr Nakkonui Na-killiko
* In the other verb given in Mr. Gray’s list the Swan River dialect has the
short and apparently the simple forms of -words* while thé öthér ^IMeetS
affect the endings above given, kar, endi, and illiko or yelUko, which appear
to be formative of verbs.
We have as yet very little information respecting the languages
spoken in the northern parts of Australia* but there
is much reason to suppose the tribes in that quarter to be
of the same race as those in the south, and their language
cognate with the dialects of the southern people.
The last contribution to the history of the Australian
language, and the first, attempt that has been made to distinguish
the different tribes of the Australian race by the
relations of their dialects, is a recent memoir-given in an
extract from a dispatch of Captain Gray, when Governor
of South Australia, to Lord Stanley, which has been printed
in the fifteenth volume of the Journal of the Geographical
Society. In this the writer has distinguished on a map the
limits, as far as they are known, of five tribes or nations On
the south coast of Australia who speak different dialects.
The first dialect is that of the natives of King George’s
Sound, or of the south-western part of Australia. This d inje
c t has a considerable extent, both up the sea-coast on the
western side, where it has been recognised as far northward
as Perth, and on the southern coast to the 136th degree
E. L. The third dialect is that spoken by the natives of
Adelaide and the country to the north. The second dialect,
accord ing to Oaptai-m Gray, is that of a mixed people sprung
from the intercourse n f the .twoffm^eU^iisteeS^ The fourth is
spoken by the natives‘ofi an inland country on the Murray and
Darli||§ Rivers. The, fifth belongs to the petijfie inhabiting
the shores of > Lake Alexandria. .Captain Gray infers that
the different tribes have extended'themselves in the direction
of the great rivers, .'mountain-chains, and sea-coasts, those
tribes who have migrated along ■.the. sea-border having spread
themselves most rapidly.-1 He adds that the lines’ of migration
afford presumptive evidence that the southern parts of Australia
were peopled from the north .*
Paragraph 2.—Characters of the Australian Languages. '
The Australian languages differ widely in the form and
compositioh of words from the Polynesian dialects. The
latter are extremely simple in structure, ‘ while the Australian
is remarkable for/ the variety and complexity of its grammatical
forms.’ There are, however^ ^some-Tew points of
striking coincidence between i theimé b shaft in the first place
point out these analogies. *
1. There is a correspondence in the phonic elementâvor
component parts, of words; and this is the more .remarkable,
as the features which resemble in the two Sets of languages
are very peculiar. Thus we find a frequent occurrence of
nasal consonants,:, an element of artiwilation représented by
ng occurs frequently in both, and not ©ply at the ,endtngs but
at the beginnings of words,^; The c#éqp^t ;>usèf of nasal
consonants is common to these two classes of languages* and
to the Chinese and Indo-Chinese idioms, while in other
similar groupes it is very rare.
2. Another phonic resemblance is the almost total want of
sibilants, or hissing consonants. There is, I believe, no s in
* Captain G. Gray on the Languages «}! Australi^> Journal of the ,Geographical
Society, vol. xv. p. 366.
+ This consonant appears, however, to he dropped bv the Tahitian and
Hawaiian, which affect a softer pronunciation than the cognate languages.
It is most remarkable in the Maorian. ’
TT ZO