BY JOSEPH LAUTERER, M,D. 13" 



the whole district of South Kennedy, on the waters of the Burde- 

 kin, and in the northern part and western half of the Leichhardt 

 district, on the tributaries of the Dawson River. Between the 

 Goa tribe (Gregory North), and the waters of the Burdekin, the 

 Nowa language of the Tateburra tribe is interserted between the 

 Kura languages. Foot is " dina," father " murnia," but strange 

 elements from the west seem to have been interpolated. The 

 northern part of the eastern half of the Leichhardt district is 

 occupied by tribes speaking Kanggu. These dialects have the 

 same roots in the vocabularies, and indeed, the negative Kanggu 

 is to be derived from Kara, emphasized by apposition of nggu. 



On the whole globe the nations have never been satisfied 

 with a single negative, as a comparison with our Aryan languages 

 can show. " Ne " was the original negative of these, as is still 

 preserved in the Slavonian " nie." The Latins already put 

 another word, " un," to the simple negative, and said " non," 

 that is, not one. The Gothic and Anglo-Saxon negative was 

 "ni," their daughter languages put "echt," something, behind 

 it, changing the word to the German "nicht," the Dutch "niet," 

 and the English " not," all of which mean, not anything. 



The Scandinavian language went even a step further, and 

 omitted the negative ni altogether, transforming the word 

 " nikke," to " ikke," which literally would mean, something, 

 instead of nothing. The French language was not satisfied 

 with the emphasized Latin " non," it wanted an additional 

 word. " Not " was expressd by "ne passum," not a pace. The 

 true negative can now be omitted in isolated use, and the word 

 " pas," meaning literally a pace, advanced to the dignity of a 

 negative. In a similar way our East Australian aboriginals 

 have not been satisfied by the simple negative "Kar," or "Kara." 

 They added other syllables before or after it, and the negative 

 " Kanggu," in the languages of the north -Avestern part of the 

 Leichhardt district, is the first instance of this. 



In the Port Curtis district, north of Rockhampton, the 

 negative is "yamma," and "tamma." The vocabularies contain 

 the same roots as the Kara languages. Y and t are of the same 

 value as A: in all the languages (Grimm's law.s), and the vi is very 

 often changed with r in the languages of Eastern Australia. So 

 both forms of negatives are just an unessential variation of 



