SOURCES AND USE OF THE VOCABULARY. 29 
from their own system; the ignorant white men have been misled by 
sound resemblance and have made the termination um, and the 
refining force of such recorders as seek to make the jargon good 
English have made it him, which is at least paradigmatically possible 
even though the syntax may suffer. At base the termination which 
makes the objective aspect is no more than a vocal sign of warning 
that an object of the verb is to follow or that it is to be understood 
that the action of the verb is extended upon some object not deemed 
needful to state. 
The general source of the Beach-la-mar vocables has already been 
considered. Before leaving this interesting jargon study we may 
note two or three particulars of origin. 
Very properly, in close accordance with our knowledge of the 
history of the growth of this trade-speech, the marine element is 
large. There can be no hesitation in ascribing to forecastle English 
such exotics as pickaninny, calaboose,and savvy—longshore sweepings 
from the Spanish Main. The squareface, sole landward hope of the 
sailor, is scarcely known ashore. ‘The sailor dialect has kept alive 
and has given to these remote savages the special sense of sing out 
and look out, of capsize along with copper, of slew, of look alive, of 
adrift and fashion. 
Of certain elements of low, cant, vulgar English the sailors may 
have been the carriers. But another source is to be included. It was 
not all of blackbirding to get the kanaka aboard the schooner of the 
labor trade; his term of hard labor was to be served in the Queens- 
land plantations. Here he had the opportunity to enrich his vocabu- 
lary with words which characterize Austral English. It is to this 
opportunity, which one might scarcely venture upon saying the 
moiling exile enjoyed, that we must ascribe in the greater measure 
the inclusion of such terms as tumble down and blackfellow, of flash 
and trash, of hook tt and clear out, of hump and wire in, of gammon 
and bloody. 
Child men and until the day of unimportant death thinking only 
as children, this speech of theirs, their English of our English, even 
when it moves us to laughter moves us to see the pathos aswell.* We 
must pity when we see the even lack of emotion which runs a blue 
*Friederici (page 100) sheds a pleasant light upon the Beach-la-mar which I am sur- 
prised to find that I had neglected. It is with pleasure, therefore, that I subjoin his 
brief sketch of the manner in which this immature language is spoken: ‘‘Ich nannte es 
vorhin einen hasslichen Jargon, eine Bezeichnung, die es ohne Zweifel reichlich verdient. 
Aber es hat auch seine freundlichen, seine verséhnenden Seiten, die selbst derempfindet, 
der die Sprache {nur wenig beherrscht, die aber in der Hauptsache nur dann zutage 
treten, wenn sie in dem ihr zustandigen Milieu, im Kreise von Kanakern gesprochen 
werden, wenn sie aus deren Munde kommen. Auf dem Papier lasst sich nur schwer 
die Wirkung mancher komischer Redewendungen, erstaunlicher Umschreibungen, 
plotzlicher Ausrufe wiedergeben. Es gehért dazu das Geberdenspiel des Melanesiers 
mit Mundwinkel, Nase, Augen und Stirn, seine unter Umstanden unsagbar verachtliche 
Miene, sein kindliches Lachen, seine laute Aufgeregtheit.”’ 
