BY HERMANN B. RITZ, M.A. 



67 



Toiina, fire, literally, spark — compare with tuna, 

 snow. These contraries have parallels in European lan- 

 g^uages, e.g., French frire, German frieren, Italian caldo, 

 English cold. It is interesting to find the phenomenon 

 in Tasmanian. Originally tonna, a contraction of tonina, 

 would be a " small, falling thing, and in this respect 

 woudl coincide with tuna, snow. 



Tonipeprinna, spark — toni, fire ; pe, prinna, fly. 



Tentia, red, topaz — ton, fire ; itia, dimin.- — somewhat 

 like fire. 



Tugana, eat — toka, footstep, periodic downward mo- 

 tion. It is possible that tonna, fire, is a contraction of 

 this, as it ' eats up " everything. 



Tone, dive — simply " falling," or else "going down 

 with jerky motions." 



Tughenapuniak, lean — tug, eat ; pun, full ; ak, no use. 



Weba, weipa, wigetina, wina, winalia, wieta, wita — ■ 

 sun, moon ; weiba, wiba, wibia, wieba, man ; wia, wiena, 

 wigena, wina, wiwina, winanana, wood, twig. The com- 

 •mon root is pe— strong, moving, projecting. 



\¥uga, wutta, wughta, earth ; pug, solid ; ta, sta- 

 tionary. 



Warra-na, bark of tree, shell, anything curved, blue 

 sky, vault, cloud shape, ghost ; pura, pulla, round. 



THE SOUTHERN SPEEICH. 



The words bear the same general character as those 

 of the Eastern speech. The separate list is given be- 

 cause Milligan and Norman based the distinction on the 

 domicile of the Aborigines they examined, and because 

 slight differences of pronunciation may thus be dis- 

 cerned. It is now impossible to assign shades of mean- 

 ing to particular tribes ; but this is immaterial, as the 

 meaning of speech sounds varied in every individual, 

 within definite limits, of course. 



Koka, ruddy cheeks, blood, red. This is a redupli- 

 cated ka, chin ; it would refer to the strikingly red colour 

 of the gums, tongue, etc., and thus assume the general 

 meaning of " red." We have seen kuegi, head, from 

 the same kaka, as the sum of these parts ; but its mean- 

 ing was there referred to shape and position, not to 

 colour. 



