66 Keble, Aboriginal Plant Names. rv^'*^'xxxiv 



has it, " the expression of ideas by means of articulate sounds 

 habitually allotted to those ideas," that of the Wurunjerri is 

 rich in them. One significant feature is the relative absence 

 of the monosyllables as individual words. The monosyllabic 

 words recorded in the vocabularies, together with those dis- 

 closed in the analyses of the several plant names, are, I believe, 

 the substratum of a much earlier and more primitive language 

 which was higlily onomatopoeic. 



A curious uncertainty surrounds the origin of the general 

 name of many European plants, trees, and shrubs or their 

 useful products. Oak, beech, weed, beer, leek, thistle, clover, 

 wonnwood, rye, bean, ash, birch, alder, aspen, bramble, reed, 

 and other simple everyday words are common to English, 

 Danish, Dutch, Icelandic, Swedish, Gothic, or some of them, 

 which is perhaps explained by their wide range ; but wliy should 

 their origin be more or less in doubt ? The intensive study 

 of a language like the Kulin Wurunjerri may, perhaps, suggest 

 the principles underlying them. 



The native conception of plant life is expressed by three 

 words — ruk, eiirt, and ktdk. Ruk is spelt in several ways, but 

 most commonly as rook or rung, or in an elided form as rk. 

 In its common, general meaning this monosyllable means an 

 arm, projection, prominence, &c. It occurs in ter ruk, an 

 arm (of the body), kul bul ling ur rook (kul 1ml lang ruk), tlxe 

 stone tomahawk, named from its make-up — kul, a gash ; bal, 

 to strike ; lang, stone (axe) ; ruk, the handle bent round the 

 stone axe-head. Oow ruk, the flint of a gun — from oow, flint ; 

 ruk, the trigger. K ruk wor rum (Ko ruk wa rum), snipe — 

 from ko, long ; ruk, wings ; wa, water ; rum, lively. Ter run 

 mur ruk, a centipede ; du rooke lark, rainbow, &c. In its 

 application to a tree, plant, or shrub, or any part of these, it 

 is found in ter rung {cf. derrk), a tree ; wee eu rook, or wer rook, 

 root of a tree ; ter ru (k) galk, a branch ; kurn b(o) rook, blossom 

 of a tree ; mur rer mur rook, venation ; jer rang (yer rang), 

 leaf of a tree ; yer rin (yer rang), shrub ; and other words in 

 which branches, root, trunk, blossom, cone, and practically 

 the whole tree economy is expressed by the one word ruk. 

 Derrk is an elided form of the syllables de ruk — from dc, from ; 

 ruk, a tree. Exceptions to this general application of ruk are 

 mur run (mur rum), a leaf, which also means the human body, 

 and is derived from mer, within, and rum, life ; wee reej), 

 trunk (bark) — from wee, small ; reep, thread which was made 

 by pounding a bark into fibres and rolling it on the thigh ; 

 toum der ry (ter rum de reep), bark — from ter, to ; rum, to 

 enliven ; de, from ; reep, fibre — probably refers to a medicinal 

 practice of pounding bark and mixing it with ochre {cf. wer 

 re rup, a doctor) and tun un no or doo a no, sap — from doo en, 

 sweet — are self-explanatory and have a utilitarian origin. 



