8o THE ABORIGINAL SPEECH OF TASMANIA. 



Phrases in Ling Roth, we find the explanation. There 

 we get, in the first ten Hnes, the fohowing words for 

 " give" : — tyenna, teang, teeany. From this we may 

 deduce several conjectures. 



If Milligan got those phrases from the same indi- 

 vidual, the words were liable to variation at will, within 

 certain limits. If he got them from individuals of the 

 same tribe, t'here was the same liberty of variation given 

 to each speaker. As Milligan published his work in 

 1858, he got his information perhaps at second hand, or 

 else from the Aboriginals after their banishment from 

 the mainland. In the latter case, tien, tian, and tiang 

 might represent different dialects. 



The variation of tian and tiang is of a type very 

 common in various languages. A man of Flanders is 

 in French called Flamand, and in the marshes of 

 England, Fleming. An English chamberlain becomes in 

 France a chambellan, and at the Vatican a camerlengo ; 

 while the Latin minus is in elegant Italian meno, and 

 in the popular speech, mingo. 



The next verse of the song is : — 

 In M., nena taypa rayna poonyna; 

 In D., naina thaipa raina pogana ; 

 In W., nyna tepe rena ponnyna. 



Ni-na is common to the three versions, though in 

 D. it appears as nena. Ni means thou or you, and the 

 different vowel in D. suggests that the dialect of D. 

 bears to t'hat of M. and W. — for these seem to be prac- 

 tically the same, except in the phonetic rendering — a 

 relation analogous to that between Doric and Ionic 

 Greek, or between North Britain and South Britain 

 English. 



Taypa, thaipa and tepe are evidently the same word, 

 meaning " come," or, rather " here." Ta means "' stop," 

 and is an echo of the " thud " heard when one thing 

 strikes against another. In pa or pe we recognise the 

 word of denoting " activity ;" pe-na means " spear," the 

 symbol of effective activity, and the syllable be or pe 

 is characteristic of verbs — i.e., words of activity. 



