RADICALLY

THE SAME THROUGHOUT THE CONTINENT-CAUSES OF A CONTRARY OPINION-DIFFERENCE OF DIALECTS-EXAMPLES-CAUSES OF ERROR IN FORMER EN

QUIRERS.

In the preceding narrative of my Expeditions, I have occasionally introduced some casual incidents relating to the manners and social condition of the natives of Australia, a race generally considered to occupy too low a position in the scale of humanity to be worthy of any peculiar regard. In the following pages, I shall bring together such observations as my intercourse with them enabled me to collect; arranging my remarks under the heads of Language, traditional or customary Laws, and social Habits and Manners; and to these I shall add some desultory anecdotes, illustrative of their superstitions, and of some other peculiarities of thought and action; and shall conclude with a short review of the influence that the settlement of Europeans among them has, or is likely to have, on their condition.

It has hitherto been very generally believed that the languages spoken in different portions of the continent of Australia are radically distinct; and as such a circumstance, were it really the case, would tend to prove that its inhabitants

208 RADICAL UNITY OF THE AUSTRALIAN LANGUAGE. originated from several separate races, it becomes rather an important matter to set this question at rest, and to endeavour to shew from what cause so erroneous an opinion originated.

The arguments which prove that all the Australian dialects have a common root are,

1st. A general similarity of sound and structure of words in the different portions of Australia, as far as yet ascertained;

2nd. The recurrence of the same word with the same signification, to be traced, in many instances, round the entire continent, but undergoing, of course, in so vast an extent of country, various modifications;

3rd. The same names of natives occurring frequently at totally opposite portions of the continent. Now, in all parts of it which are known to Europeans, it is ascertained that the natives name their children from any remarkable circumstance which may occur soon after their birth; such being the case, an accordance of the names of natives is a proof of a similarity of dialect.

The chief cause of the misapprehension which has so long existed with regard to the point under consideration, is that the language of the aborigines of Australia abounds in synonymes, many of which are, for a time, altogether local; so that, for instance, the inhabitants of a particular district will use one word for water, whilst those of a neighbouring district will apply another, which appears to be a totally different But when I found out that in such instances

one.

CAUSES OF ERROR IN ENQUIRERS.

209

as these both tribes understood the words which either made use of, and merely employed another one, from temporary fashion and caprice, I felt convinced that the language generally spoken to Europeans by the natives of any one small district could not be considered as a fair specimen of the general language of that part of Australia, and therefore in the vocabulary which I compiled in Western Australia, I introduced words collected from a very extensive tract of country.

Again,-in getting the names of the parts of the body, &c. from the natives, many causes of error arise; for they have names for almost every minute portion of the human frame: thus, in asking the name for the arm, one stranger would get the name for the upper arm, another for the lower arm, another for the right arm, another for the left arm, &c.; and it therefore seems most probable that in the earlier stages of the inquiry into the nature of the language of this people, these circumstances contributed mainly to the erroneous conclusion, that languages radically different were spoken in remote parts of the continent.

One singularity in the dialects spoken by the aborigines in different portions of Australia is, that those of districts widely removed from one another, sometimes assimilate very closely, whilst the dialects spoken in the intermediate ones differ considerably from either of them. The same circumstances take place with regard to their rites and customs; but as this appears rather to be

long to the question, of the means by which this race was distributed over so extensive a tract of country, I will not now enter into it, but merely adduce sufficient evidence to prove that a language radically the same, is spoken over the whole continent.

If, then, we start from Perth, in Western Australia, following the coast, in a southerly direction, it will be found, that between Perth and King George's Sound, a common language is spoken, made up of several dialects, scarcely differing from one another in any material points, and gradually merging into the dialects of these two places, as the points considered are nearer to one or the other.

The principal causes of difference between the dialects of these two places are, 1st, that at King George's Sound, the terminating syllable of all names is dropped; and 2nd, that all verbs, with a very few exceptions, end in "gur," instead of the varying termination which is given to them at Perth. Any person who can speak the Perth dialect will, by observing these two rules, be able to converse freely with the natives of King George's Sound.

Examples to illustrate this difference of dialects.

From these examples, it will be seen that the

King George's Sound dialect is the simplest of the