268 Appendix G, 



APPENDIX G. 



Language of the Kolarian Aborigines; — Grammatical construction of 

 the Ho language. — By Lieut. -Gol. Tickell.* 



I hope due allowances will be made for the imperfectness of the 

 grammatical details here given, when it is remembered that the Ho 

 language has no written character, nor does there exist a person, native 

 of the Kolehan or otherwise, who could give me the slightest assis- 

 tance on this point. 



It would be trite to observe that grammar is as inherent and essen- 

 tial to all languages, even the most barbarous, as a vocabulary itself. 

 By first learning a number of the words and sentences arbitrarily, the 

 system on which they are founded may be detected in due time by 

 patient comparisons of them, even when the speakers themselves are 

 unable to give the inquirer the least information on the construction 

 of what they are saying. With this difficulty once mastered, it is 

 inconceivable with what ease the most (apparently) complex and 

 difficult languages become familiar. 



The sounds of the Ho language are exceedingly pure and liquid, 

 without strong aspirates or gutturals, and may be well rendered by 

 the English alphabet, or still better the French one, as that admits of 

 the slight nasal inflection which prevails in many words in the Ho 

 dialect. 



Let the following conventions be made to the sound of the vowels, 

 in the ensuing dialogues, &c. 



a as in " father," " rather," 



e 



1 



ee 



y 



ai or ay- 

 6 



fn (nasal n) , 



11 



"prey," 



"ete," 







>> 



" skip," 



" trip," 







11 



" sheep,' 



'"peep," 







11 



" fly," 



"try," 







11 



longer sound as in " 



aye, 



aye?" 



11 

 11 



" bone," 

 " fool," 



"stone," 

 " stool," 







11 



" Ton" 



" Fanfaron, 



" (French.) 



* Reprinted from As. Soc. Journal, Vol. IX. p. 1063. 

 f Also g, as the French liquid g, in Cologne, Boulogne. 



