SOME KEMAKKS ON THE AUSTRALIAN LANGUAGES. 235' 



of the sky.' Any one of you, who has had the curiosity to look 

 into lists of names for common things in Australian vocabularies, 

 must have been surprised to see how diverse are these names, 

 in the various tribes, but your wonder ceases to be wonder when 

 the cause is known. In fact, we do find that among conterminous, 

 tribes, and even in the sub-sections of the same tribe, these words 

 vary greatly ; for the presence of death from time to time in the 

 encampments had the effect of maintaining a continual changing 

 of the names of things. Hence it is that, as I have said, the 

 labour spent on these lists of words is often labour mis-spent, for 

 to the philologist it must be barren of results, unless we have in 

 the lists at the same time a due proportion of the simple roots^ 

 from which such words are taken ; thus only is it possible to see- 

 and understand the mechanism of the language. 



You may possibly ask me why our blackfellows had so strong a 

 disinclination to mention the name of a friend who had died. 

 We ourselves have a feeling of the same kind. We speak of our 

 friend as 'the deceased,' 'the departed,' 'him who is gone'; and if 

 we must mention his name, we apologise for it by saying ' poor ' 

 Mr. So-and-so, and seem afraid to use the simple word 'dead.' 

 But our indigenes have a stronger reason than that. They believe 

 that the spirit of a man, especially if he is killed by violence, is 

 excessively uncomfortable after death, and malicious, and in its 

 fretfulness ready to take offence at anything, and so pour out its. 

 wrath on the living. Even the mention of the dead man's name 

 would offend, and bring vengeance on them in the night time. Our 

 blacks seem also to have the idea that the deceased, for a certain 

 number of days after death, has not yet got his spiritual body, 

 which slowly grows upon him, and that, while in this undeveloped 

 state, he is like a child, and is specially querulous and vengeful. 

 But I fear that this digression is leading me off the track of the 

 Australian languages. 



3. Tests in examining Languages. 



I now proceed to show you some results which may be obtained 

 even from our Australian words, by comparing them with others, 

 elsewhere. It is agreed among philologists, that there is no surer 

 test of the affinity of different languages than that which corner 

 through the identification of their pronouns, numerals, and, to a 

 less extent, their prepositions. To this I would add, in our present 

 inquiry, the identity of such common words as ' eye, foot, hand, 

 water, fire, sun, moon,' and the like ; for these words cannot have 

 been used much in the names of individuals, and are therefore 

 not likely to have suffered from the fluctuations which I have 

 already explained. It is true that, in all languages, the pronouns 

 and the numerals are subject to abrasion and decay, from the- 



