/6o THE SPEECH OF THE TASMANIAN ABORIGINES. 



kepegine, to eat, but these are evidently composed of 

 ka, jaw, and pegi, teeth. 



(12) Guttnral+dental — rejection+rest : kate, kaita, bad 

 (i.e., do not like it, leave it alone) ; katala, snake, the bad 

 moving" thing; katela or katila, seal, and katina, cow, 

 would also be so called if the Aborigines were at first 

 afraid of them ; kote, quick, is akin to kroti (v. supra), 

 but there is a curious development of the idea in koti, 

 little, kaita, dog (small beast), the idea of quickness and 

 smallness being easily associated, and from the idea of 

 '' small ■" we readily pass to that of " pet." Compare also 

 " cat '' and kitten." Again, there is a connection between 

 koti and kate (v. supra) ; as the Aborigines called a good 

 or great man pallawa or pugana, they would naturally 

 call a little thing, kate, bad. Kotube, to tug at a rope, 

 is expressive of the resistance of an inert mass to the 

 action of pulling ( — be or pe). 



The examples here given will suffice for the purpose 

 of illustrating the principle ; their number might easily 

 have been augmented. In some cases the same word 

 was made to serve in two places. This was done because 

 there was a plausible alternative, and because it is quite 

 possible that different speakers named the same thing 

 on sligfhtly different principles. The orthography is that 

 of H. Ling Roth's lists : phonetic, not always consistent, 

 but sufficiently accurate for our present purpose. 



It will have been noticed that the interchange of 

 kindred sounds is not detrimental to the clearness of the 

 meaning of words, and that the vowels are remarkably 

 variable. 



Before we proceed to the illustration of our theory 

 in the case of longer words, it will be necessary to draw 

 special attention to the variation of speech sounds. 

 'Here it is difficult to decide in each case whether the 

 variation is due to the general instability of the 

 Aboriginal orthoepy, or to the difference of dialects, or 

 to the insincerity of the Aborigines, who would prob- 

 ably not be eager to deprive themselves of the means 

 of secret communication with each other, or to the de- 

 fective perceptivity of the recorders, or to their linguistic 

 idiosyncrasies, or to careless writing or transcription of 

 the original records, or to the printer or his reader. 



