BY HERMANN B. RITZ, M.A. 



51 



work (p. 166) that Mr. Robert Clark, catec'hist, states 

 that on his arrival at the Flinders Settlement, in 1834, 

 •eight or ten different languages or dialects were spoken 

 among the 200 natives then at the establishment, and 

 that the blacks were instructing each other to speak 

 their respective tongues. This would not have been 

 necessary if there had been a common vocabulary, such 

 as we find in the various dialects of English, French, 

 German, etc. 



Again, Alilligan wrote (L. Roth, p. 180): — "The cir- 

 cumstance of the Aboriginal inhabitants of Van Die- 

 men's Land being divided into many tribes and sub- 

 tribes, in a state of perpetual antagonism and open 

 hostility to each other, materially added to the number 

 of the elements and agents of mutation ordinarily 

 ■operating on the language of an unlettered people. To 

 this was superadded the effect of certain superstitious 

 customs everywhere prevalent, which led from time to 

 time to the absolute rejection and disuse of words pre- 

 viously employed to express objects familiar and indis- 

 pensable to all, thus tending arbitrarily to diversify the 

 dialects of several tribes. The habit of gesticulation and 

 the use of signs to eke out the meaning of monosyllabic 

 expressions, and to give force, precision, and character 

 to vocal sounds, exerted a further modifying effect, pro- 

 ducing, as it did, carelessness and laxity of articulation 

 and in the application and pronunciation of words. The 

 last-named irregularity, namely, the distinctly different 

 pronunciation of a word by the same person on different 

 occasions, to convey the same idea, is very perplexing 

 until the radical or essential part of the word, apart from 

 prefixes and suffixes, is caught hold of." 



Dr. iVIilligan's opinion is of great weight, as he made 

 special efforts to obtain reliable information, and had 

 spefial facilities for investigation. It is his last-quoted 

 sentence that indicates the starting point of our present 

 researches. 



When we examine the syllables of the Aboriginal 

 words, we notice that they are few in number and simple 

 in structure. This is due to the paucity of consonants 

 and vowels, and even these may be reduced, owing to 

 the peculiarity that they can be arranged in groups, the 

 members of which are interchangfeable. 



