76 THE ABORIGINAL SPEECH OF TASMANIA. 



Let US then compare the three versions of our song, 

 and see what conclusions we can deduce from them. 

 Omitting mere repetitions, as not pertinent to our pre- 

 sent purpose, we quote from Ling Rot'h : — 



MilHgan's version: — Pappela rayna 'ngonyna; toka 

 mengha leah ; lugha mengha leah ; nena taypa ra3ma 

 poonyna, nena nawra pewillah, pallah nawra pewillah ; 

 pellawah ! 



Davies' version: — Ne popila raina pogana; thu me 

 gunnea ; thoga me gunnea ; naina thaipa raina pogana ; 

 nara paara, poiveha paara ; bahahoo ! Hoo ! 



G. W. Walker's version : — Poppyla-renung, onnyna ; 

 tcmingannya, lemingannya ; taukummingannya ; nyna 

 tepe rena ponnyna ; nyna nara pewilly para ; nara 

 pewilly pallawoo ! 



This version is slig^iitly different in the Memorial 

 Volume : — Instead of temingannya we have lemin- 

 gannya. It is probable that temingannya is a misprint 

 for lemingannya, or vice versa. 



On analogy with the rest of the song, it is more 

 likely that lemingannya should be repeated than that 

 another word, however similar, should be used. Stilk 

 temingannya will also give an appropriate sense ; and 

 we shall refer to it again in t'hat light. 



For convenience of reference, we shall denote MilH- 

 gan's version by M., Davies' version by D., and 

 Walker's by W. 



Looking at the whole text, we at once notice that 

 practically all the words end in " a," " ah," " na," or 

 " ne." We may safely assume that these endings have 

 no essential meaning, whatever meaning they may have 

 had originally. We find the same phenomena in many 

 other languages. For instance, the ending "a" indi- 

 cates the feminine gender in all the languages of the 

 Indo-European family ; " s " is most commonly the sign 

 of the masculine gender, as we find it, e.g., in Aeneas, 

 dominus, eques, visus ; in " res," etc., the " s " is really 

 borrowed from the masculine nouns, and the word is 

 akin to mensa. 



