238 JOHN FRASER. 



ion on the evidence independently, and ] seldom read the opinions 

 of others until after I have made my own. Indeed, I am convinced 

 that no one has ever discussed these numerals before, for it is 

 •commonly alleged that it is impossible to give any account of them. 

 The word pir is said by Bon wick to be used by the blacks on the 

 Namoi,* and a modification of it is in use in Queensland. These 

 are, so far as I know, the only two places where it is to be found. 

 But I think it is correctly quoted, for I know the word piriwul 

 means ' chief,' and pir seems to me to bear the same relation to 

 piriwul that the Latin primus, 'first,' bears to princeps, 'chief,' 

 4 first,' or the Latin preposition pro, 'before,' to proceres, 'chiefs,' 

 or our English word 'first' to the German Fiirst, 'a prince.' In 

 fact I regard pro and pir as the same word originally. 



Now, do not mistake me here ; for I do not assert that the lan- 

 guages spoken by our Australians are uterine brothers to the Latin 

 and the Greek ; but I do assert that all languages have one com- 

 mon, although ancient, origin, and that, in the essential words of 

 these languages, there are proofs of that common origin. Pir, 

 then, as allied to pro, means the number which comes 'before' 

 all others in the row, the one that comes 'first.' The Latin pri- 

 mus is for pri-imus (cf. Sk. pra-thamas, 'first'), in which the 

 root pri, not unlike pir, is the same as the Latin pro and prae. 

 In the Aryan family, the nearest approach to the Australian pir is 

 the Lithuanian pir-mas, 'first,' and pir-m (a preposition), 'before'; 

 other remote kinsmen are the Greek pro-tos, 'first,' pru-tanis, 

 *a prince,' 'a president ' (cf. piriwul), prin, 'before'; the Gothic 

 fru-ma, 'first'; the Aryan prefixes pra, fra, pro, pru, prae, pre 

 and fore, as in our English 'fore-ordain.' The Keltic languages 

 drop the initial p or/, and say ro, ru, air, ari, to mean 'before.' 

 In the Malay region ar-ung is a 'chief,' and in Polynesia ari-ki 

 is 'a chief,' which the Samoans change into ali'i ; these words, I 

 would say, come from eastern forms corresponding to the Keltic 

 ro, air, 'before.' In Samoan i lu-ma means 'in front,' and in 

 Malay de-alu-wan; these are like ru; in Aneityum, a Papuan 

 island of the New Hebrides, a ' chief ' is called natimi arid, 

 where arid is 'high,' 'exalted,' doubtless from the same root as 

 ariki; and arid is to ariki as the Latin procerus, 'tall,' to 

 proceres, 'chiefs'; natimi means 'man.' From the abraded 

 form ru I take the New Britain word lua (Samoan lua'i), 'first.' 



In the Dra vidian languages of India, from which quarter, as I 

 suppose, our Australian languages have come, there is a close 

 parallel to our word pir, for there pir-a means 'before,' and pir an 



* Since this was written, I find that Hale, the philologist to the U.S. 

 Exploring Expedition, 50 years ago, quotes this word j there can, there- 

 fore, be no doubt of its antiquity and genuineness. 



