THE
SPEECH
OF
THE
T
ASM AN
IAN
ABORIGINES.
By
Hermann
B. Ritz,M.A.
(Read
14th June, 1909.)I.—
INTRODUCTORY
REA/LARKS.
The
reconstruction of the speech of theextmct
Tas-manian
Aborigines
seems
at first ahiiost impossible,ov/ing-to the paucity
and
dubiousness of the recordswe
possess; but after careful research
we
find that,though
the records are scanty, yet they are fairly ample,
con-sidering the comparatively small
number
of thecon-stituent parts of the language,
and
a reasonabledegree
•of probability can be attained
by
a patient study of thematerial available.
As
we
proceed
inour
investigation, Ave find that thesubject
opens
up
most
interestingavenues
of thought,and promises
to lead to important results in thedomains
of philology, ethnology,
and
anthropology.To
exhaust
it
would
recjuire the labour of years; but it is possibleand
expedient to formulate'aworking
theoryand
sub-mit it to
competent
criticism,and
this iswhat
Inow
venture to do.
Before entering
upon
thisworking
theory, it willbe
advisable to define the scope of the present
investiga-tion.
As
a trained philologist, Iam
wellaware
of theclassification of the
languages
ofmankind,
and have
aworking knowledge
of a certainnumber
ofthem
; butI find the characteristics of the
Tasmanian
speech soprimitive
and
unstable, that I cannotseemy
way
to enrolit in
any
of the classes givenby
the text-books.It
might
be called a root-isolating language, akin tothe Chinese, but for the fact that its roots are liable to
variation, within certain limits, not merely in the speech
BY
HERMANN
B. RITZ, M.A.45
an}^ individual speaker.
Moreover,
a rootmay
have
acertain
meaning
inone
familyand
apparently a quitedifferent
meaning
in the other,and
phoneticchanges
seem
tohave
been
subject to accident rather than tophonetic laws.
Of
course,we
are notbound
toadmit
the existence of accidents,
and
we
may
reasonablyas-sume
that alaw
may
be found, ifwe
only will or cango
deep
enough
to find it.To
find thelaw
underlying thephenomena
of theTasmanian
speech is the object of the presentinvestiga-tion.
Again, it has
been
suggested that this speech is akin to that of the Australian Continent orsome
parts of it,or to that of the
South Sea
Islands, or to that of theAndaman
Islands,and on
these assumptions, theories ofethnological affinity
have
been
based.Now,
a scientific opinionon
thismust
befounded
on
the
knowledge
of all the speeches in question,and
is notwithin the scope of our present study, not only
from
want
of sufficientknowledge,
but alsobecause
of itsextent
and
practical uncertainty.The
similarity ofspeech
between
twO' distant races or tribes does not justifyeven
apresumption
of ethnological affinity,ex-cept in so far as
we
may
assume
the essential uniformit}^ of psychologicaland
physiological processes in allhuman
beings. Still,on
the latterassumption
we may
establish analogies, provided
we
can find the speakersof the different
languages
to be at thesame
stage ofmental development.
Finally, the anthropological aspect of
our
subjectclaims
our
attention, because the evidence of theavail-able records of the
Tasmanian
speechseems
toshow
that those that used it represented the primitive, or at least very early, stage ofhuman
thought
and
speech.Moreover,
itshows
thathowever
primitive theirthought
and
speech were, theywere
of thesame
kind as thoseof all other races of
which
we
have
any knowledge.
It
seems
clear, then, thatwe must
restrict ourpre-sent researches to the
Tasmanian
speech;and even
herewe
find a larger field than at firstwe
should expect,and
are therefore
compelled
to subdivide it, in order to46
THE SPEECH
OF
THE TASMANIAN
ABORIGINES.Practically all the available material is contained
in
H.
Ling
Roth'swork,
'*The
Aborigines
of
Tas-mania
" (Halifax, 1899),supplemented
by
H.
De
Charency's "
Recherches
sur les DialectesTasmaniens
" (Alen9on, 1880).A
comparison
ofH.
Ling
Roth'swork
with the sources of his information proves that his
work
may
safely betaken
as a reliable standard of reference,as far as the
main
facts areconcerned
; the misprintsand
errors of transcription are comparativelyfew
innumber
and
easily corrected.We
shall therefore beable to quote chiefly
from
that book.De
Charency
simply gives a list ofwords
taken
chiefly
from
French
authors.Latham
(i)and
Mtiller (2)have
dealt with theTas-manian
speech, but I purposelypostpone
the study oftheir theories until I
have completed
the elaboration ofmy
own.
Iam
familiar with the usual viewson
thesubject of their works, and,
on
the other 'hand,do
notwish
torun
the risk ofunconscious
bias in favour ofany
particular
view
until I havethoroughly
investigated theoriginal sources of information.
Taking, then,
H.
Ling
Roth'sbook
asour
guide,we
find that there are certainly several dialects of the
Tas-manian
language,and
that these dialects are assignableto fairly definite geographical regions.
The
number
ofthese dialects is difficult to ascertain; but
on broad
lineswe
can easily distinguish two,spoken
in regionswhich
are separated
by mountains and
other obstacles, viz., theWestern
and North-Western
speechon
theone
hand,and
theEastern
and Southern on
the other.The
re-cords of the
former
aremuch
scantier than those of thelatter,
and
of these,more
material is definitely assignedto the
East
Coast
than to the region of the RiverD'erwent.
We
shall therefore beginour
scrutiny with the records of theEastern
speech, then take those of theSouthern,
and
finally those of theWestern
and
North-Western
dialects.(i) G. R. Latham, Elements of Comparative Philology,
(Ivondon, 1862).
{2) Fried. Miiller, Grniidriss der Spracliwissenschaft
BY HERMANN"
B. RITZ, M.A.47
First,
however,
we
must
briefly refer to the charac-teristics of the records themselves. It is evident thatthe original writers of these records
had
no
specialtraining for this
work.
Many
ofthem
were
men
ofcon-siderable scientific attainments, but there
was
no
spe-cialist in philology
among
them,and even
if therehad
been, the science of
Phonology,
indeed that ofCom-parative Philology itself,
had
not in their timeemerged
from
mere
empiricism to therudiments
ofstricth^ logicaltreatment.
Again,
some
of the recorderswere
French,one
was
a
Scandinavian, otherswere
natives of different partsofthe
United
Kingdom,
and
each of these recordedwhat
he
thought
heheard and
according to theway
he triedto imitate the
Ta&manian
words.When
we
add
to thesecauses of uncertainty the circumstances that
ortho-graphy
was
not always a point of excellence in thosedays,
we
realisesome
of the difficulties attendingour
examination
of the records. Still,some
ofthesedifficul-ties are not as great as
one
would
expect. After all, thespelling
was
to a certain extent phonetic,and by
pro-nouncing
theTasmanian
words
as if theywere
English,'and
comparing
them
with similarwords
of kindredmeaning,
we
soon
learn to fix the actualsounds
withsome
certainty.There
is yet another difficulty with those records.When
vocabulariesand
lists of phraseswere beginning
to be compiled, the influence of the white invaders of
Tasmania
had been
active forabout
thirty years,and
had
almost
completely destroyed the original conditionsof the life of the Aborigines.
The
survivorshad been
collected,
and
their various dialectshad been
mutilated,•and
amalgamated
into a sort of "lingua franca"made
up
of convenient nativewords
and
colloquialand
tech-nical
English
terms. Still, it is possible to pick outwords
characteristic of certain dialects, just as
we
coulddeter-mine
the Attic, Ionic, Doric,and
Aeolianforms from
a
piece ofGreek
compositiondone
by
an ambitiousschoolboy.
Nor
is theadmixture
of Englishwords
ofserious
consequence
; thewords
are chiefly thenames
of things
unconnected
with the life of the Aborigines, ;and, fortunately for our purpose, the native syntaxwas
not interfered with to
any
noticeable extent,owing
to a48
THE SPEECH
OF
THE TASMANIAN
ABORIGINES. English-speaking travellers tliat theyendeavour
toim-press their
meaning
on
the "foreign "'natives
by
speak-ing very loudly
and
distinctly,and by
usingwhat
hasbeen
called "jingalese" syntax, after thestyle of
Mr.
Alfred Jingle,
which
consists in uttering a series ofnames
ofthingsand
actions withoutany
attempt at con-necting them.Now,
this is precisely the style of the Aboriginalspeech,
and
the similarity of thetwo
styleson
theone
hand
confirms the conjecture that the Aboriginal stylewas
a primitive, infantilemethod
ofconveying
thought,and,
on
the other hand, it helps tO' explain the fact thatEnglish in its "pidgin" or " business"
form
is so easily acquired
by
foreigners.In
my
interpretation of thePopela
Song
(Papers ofthe
Royal
Society ofTasmania,
1908), Ihad
occasion togive
some
examples
of this style of speaking,and
we
shall consider
some
further illustrations indue
course.For
the present,we
shall discuss onlyone
pointmore,
namely, the intonation of the Aboriginal speech,,as regards
word
accentand
phrase modulation.The
records
do
not always indicate the word-accent,and
when
they do, they often vary.Two
methods
ofindi-cating the accented syllable are used, viz., that of
doub-ling the
consonant
after the accented vowel,and
that ofputting a small horizontal stroke over that
vowel
;and
these
methods
areemployed
with sufficient frequencyto allow of definite conclusions
on
the matter.As
an interesting illustrationwe
may
take theword
for " bullock
"or
"beef,"quoted
by
H.
Ling Roth
from
Jorgensen's vocabulary (p. 182).Jorgensen
says, interalia, that
buckelow
or iDacala, "bullock," isfrom
the English, probably because therewere
no
nativebul-locks.
The
Englishword
" bullock "would
bechanged
by
metathesis into "buckle,"and lengthened
by
the usual epitheticvowel
into "buckla," orsomething
likeit. It is evident that the
word
accent restson
the firstsyllable.
But
Norman
in his vocabulary (L.R., p. i)gives the
word
asparka
liar.Now,
in this vocabulary,we
must
eliminate the majority of the r's, asmerely
phonetic devices; thus
we
getpak
11a,where
the accent is not onlymarked
by
the strokeabove
the second a,.BY
HERMANN
B. RITZ, M.A.49
Now,
theTasmanian
word-accent
was
quitefre-quently
on
the third syhablefrom
the -end—
theante-jjenult, so that the
change
in the present case cannotbe
(due to a Hnguistic habit of placing" the accent
on
thepenult. Thei"e are at least
two
obvious explanations ofthis matter.
The
unstable character of the Aboriginalspeech
may
have
extended
the word-accent,and
lefteach speaker or family of speakers free to accentuate
a
word
atrandom
or at will. Indeed,we
find strongevi-dence
ofsuch
a state of things.For
instance,H.
Ling
Roth
quotes for "foot" or "leg" the followingwords
—
languna
(p. ii.), lagarra (p. xi.), langna (p. xiii.),which
seems
identical withlangana
(p.'xi.) with the accenton
the first syllable,
luggana
(p. xxvi.), leunia (p. xxx.),langeneh
(p. 1.).Again, the
word
buckelow
may
not be ofEnglish
origin at all. This
seems
themore
plausible view, forwe
findcognate
words
in theundoubtedly
Aboriginalvocabulary, e.g., wakella
—
mussel
(p. iv.), wakellina—
sun
ormoon
(p. v.), wakella—
calf of leg (p. i.), ell ofwhich
denotesomething
''round."The
modulation
of the voice inspeaking
is of thesame
kind as thatfound
inEuropean
lang'uages, forin-stance in English as
spoken
by
aNorth
Briton, aWelshman,
oran
Irishman.W^e
find itmost
clearlyexpressed
insong
and
in the love of singing,and
theTasmanian
Aborigines
affordgood
examples
of it.H.
Ling Roth
(pp. 134 ff.) gives agood
account
of themusic
of theAborigines
; but a better idea of it can begathered from hearing
thesongs
themselves. This ispossible to us,
owing
to thatwonderful
device calledthe
gramophone.
Mr.
Horace
Watson,
ofSandy
Bay,an ardent
and
sympathetic student of Aboriginal life,,had
shown
much
kindness toMrs.
Fanny
Cochrane
Smith,
one
of the descendants of the AboriginalTas-manians, and,
on
one
occasion shewas
delightedto-please
him
by
singingtwo
nativesongs
into aphono-graph.
The
circumstances thus render the sincerity ofher
performance
unquestionable.The
records are inperfect order,
and Mr. Watson,
to helpme
inmy
studyof the
Tasmanian
speech,most
generously gave
me
a
copy
of each. Ihope
tohave an
opportunity totrans-late
and
'explain these records to theRoyal
Society; forro
THE SPEECH
OF
THE TASMANIAN
ABORIGINES.distinguished for the precision of its
rhythm, and
thesecond
isperhaps
an
imitation, not of aHighland
bag-•pipe, as
Bonwick
opined, but of themelody
of a nativemagpie,
which most unmelodionsly
the zoologists call a.
"
piping crow."II.—
PHONOLOGY
AND
SEMASIOLOGY.
H.
Ling
Roth, in his "Aborigines
ofTasmania/'
tabulates
some
3,000words
of their language.As
Ihave
stated before, his lists are fairly accurate copies ofthe original sources of his information,
and
may
safely*
be used
as a basis for our detailed investigation.We
shalltake
our examples
chieflyfrom
theAppendix.
The
original recorders
endeavoured
to write phonetically.Thus
we
findon
theone
hand
a considerable variety inthe spelling of the
same
Aboriginal words, and,on
the'Otherhand, this variety itself enables us to fix the actual
sound, because
there is inmost
cases onlyone
group
ofsounds
than can be phonetically representedby
all thevarieties of the spelling.
But
herewe
meet
with aphenomenon
which seems
to present an insuperable obstacle,
and
yet contains theIcey to a plausible solutionof the
whole
question; forwe
find in
words
of thesame
dialectsuch
similarity asargues
an
identity ofmeaning,
and
such dififereinces asare in other
languages found
as distinguishing charac-teristics of different dialects.We
may
assume
words
to beof thesame
dialect,if theyappearin the vocabularyof a recorder
who
did notmeet
withmore
thanone
tribe of Aborigines, or
who
had
sufficientknowledge
ofdifferent tribes to
be
able to assign .eachword
to itsproper
origin.Ataong
theformer
are chiefly thenavi-gators, e.g.,
Cook, Peron, and
La
Billardiere;among
the latter
we
may
mention
Norman,
Jorgensen,and
Milligan.
Now,
these quasi-identicalwords might have
come
from
different tribes,and
thushave formed
acomposite
BY
HERMANN
B. RITZ, M.A.51
work
(p. 166) thatMr. Robert
Clark, catec'hist, statesthat
on
his arrival at the Flinders Settlement, in 1834,•eight or ten different
languages
or dialectswere spoken
among
the200
natives then at the establishment,and
that the blacks
were
instructing each other tospeak
their respective tongues. This
would
nothave
been
necessary if there
had
been
acommon
vocabulary,such
as
we
find in the various dialects of English, French,German,
etc.Again, Alilligan
wrote
(L. Roth, p. 180):—
"The
cir-cumstance
of the Aboriginal inhabitants ofVan
Die-men's
Land
being divided intomany
tribesand
sub-tribes, in a state of perpetual
antagonism
and
open
hostility to each other, materially
added
to thenumber
of the elementsand
agents ofmutation
ordinarilyoperating
on
thelanguage
of an unlettered people.To
this
was
superadded
the effect of certain superstitiouscustoms everywhere
prevalent,which
ledfrom
time totime to the absolute rejection
and
disuse ofwords
pre-viously
employed
to express objects familiarand
indis-pensable to all, thus tending arbitrarily to diversify the
dialects of several tribes.
The
habit of gesticulationand
the use of signs to eke out the
meaning
of monosyllabic expressions,and
to give force, precision,and
characterto vocal sounds, exerted a further
modifying
effect, pro-ducing, as it did, carelessnessand
laxity of articulationand
in the applicationand
pronunciation of words.The
last-named irregularity, namely, the distinctly different
pronunciation ofa
word
by
thesame
person on
differentoccasions, to
convey
thesame
idea, is very perplexinguntil the radicaloressentialpart of the
word,
apartfrom
prefixesand
suffixes, iscaught
hold of."Dr. iVIilligan's opinion is of great weight, as he
made
special efforts to obtain reliable information,
and had
spefial facilities for investigation. It is his last-quoted sentence that indicates the starting point of
our
presentresearches.
When
we
examine
the syllables of the Aboriginalwords,
we
notice thattheyarefew
innumber
and
simplein structure. This is
due
to the paucity ofconsonants
and
vowels,and even
thesemay
be reduced,owing
tothe peculiarity that they can
be arranged
in groups, the52
THE SPEECH
OP
THE TASMANIAN
ABORIGINES.H. Ling
Roth
(p. 183)enumerates
the followingcon-sonants
—
"b. c (? k), g,h
(only at theend
of words), k, 1,m,
n, p, q (qii) [? k], r, t, [w], ch,and
gh
(pro-nounced
as inGerman
hochachten)."Now,
it Avillbe
shown
that, very probably, thesemay
be reduced
to the followinggroups
—
b
p w, d t,g
k
ch gh, 1m
n
r ng.d is apparently characteristic of the
Western
dialect;:H. Ling Roth
does not include it in his list; ng,belong-ing to
most
dialects, is also omitted.Again,
we
find 1,m,
n, r,ng
as alternatives of t, p,t, k respectiveh';
ng
ma}- also stand for n,sometimes
for nag.
Thus
we
have
practically only fourcon-sonants,
corresponding
to the labial, dental, guttural,and
liquidsounds
; the 'liquidsounds
themselves areoften assignable to other groups.
The
vowels, again, are liable to bechanged
at will,within certain limits.
For
instance,we
have
thesame
meaning
expressedby
pana, pena, plena, poina,puna
;
(v. infra).
It should
be
staited that in this essay thevowels of
Tasmanian
words
are to be read as if theywere
Italian..This is probably not quite accurate, but sufficiently so
for our purpose, especially in
view
of the instability ofthe Aboriginal speec'h-sounds.
Thus
thenumber
of possible syllableswas
very
small; but
we
shall see that,though
small, itwas
suffi-cient for the needs of the speakers.
The
long
words
ofour vocabularies can be cut
up
into syllables v/hich aretlie real
words
of the language.In
my
essayon
the Evolution ofWords,
part ofwhich
I read before this Society inSeptember,
19(35, Iendeavoured
to connect the original speechsounds
w^ithdefinite psychic states
and
processes,and
the principlesthen enunciated
seem
to be strikingly illustrated in theclearly primitive speechof
Tasmania.
I shallhave
occa-sion to refer to
them
incidentally lateron
; for thepre-sent,
one
example
will suffice.On
page
17, I wrote,inter alia
—
"Terms
ofendearment
are essentially of a.iBY
HERMANN
B. RITZ, M.A.^^
The
thin, bright sounds, t,1. i, n, s, are t3'pical ofdiminu-tives, not only in nouns, but also in adjectives,
and even
in verbs."
Now,
inTasmania,
we
find ina, enna, itia assuffixes indicating diniinutives,
analogous
with theGerman
ing, the English kin, theFrench
il, in, et, the Italian illo, ino, etto.The Tasmanian
diphthongs
ma}^ be divided intotwo
groups.
H. Ling Roth
gives au, oi,and
ou, but omitsie, ia, as
he
takes the i of the lattergroup
to be acon-sohantal i.
The
group
au, oi, ou, towhich
we
ma}^add
oa, simply represent
an
unstable a or o,whereas
ia, ie,ea, are
developments
of i or e, indicating a lengtheningin time or space, as expressed
by
delay, interval, or acurve;
wina
is a straig'ht stick,wiena
a bent orbroken
one.
Of
the consonants, the liquids alone are capable ofcontinuance; they therefore fitly represent motion.
We
find,accordingly, thatlia (also inthe
forms
oflena, liena, lila)means
missile, leg, water, bu-sh fire, iguana,kan-garoo, cat, gun, crow,
movable
shelter, nest, stone(mis-sile or cutting tool); ria (also rene, riawe, riena, rina)
means
toe, hand, finger, to polish, water, dance, kan-garoo, rat,torun
;ni, (alsonina, nile, none, noana, nuna,nuena),
means you
(i.e.,away
from
me), no, hand, takeaway,
fire, flea, stoneimplement;
mina
(alsomena,
manga,
mana, meuna),
means
I,mine
(i.e.,towards
me),lips, beak, sick (restless), tongue, bird.
The
labialconsonants
represent asudden
puff, a sending forth of energy,and
are therefore veryappro-priate for expressing action
and
purpose.Thus
we
findpa
(also ba, wa,ma)
as the general suffix of verbs; assuffix, prefix, or infix, it expresses
power,
emphasis,magnitude.
Alana,mena,
mina,meaning
" I,"may
wellindicate, besides "
motion towards me,"
theprime
im-portancemen
attribute to theirown
persons. It isin-teresting to note that
most
European
languages
useme
or
mi
as thepronoun
of the first person.We
find,further, that
pena
(also pana, penina, pina, poine,puna)
means
lance, oar, laugh, fish, pointed, sharp, bird.The
dental consonants,pronounced
by
practicallyshutting the teeth, indicate inclusion
and
exclusion,and
54
THE SPEECH
OF
THE
TASMANIAN"
ABORIGINES.nina, nara, besides
meaning
"motion
away
from
me,""may
indicate the non-ego, the outer world, i.e., you, he,,she, they, that thing; ni or noi, similarly,
may mean
negation, as well as "apart from."
Tana
(also taw'e, tia,. tiena,tienbug, tona, toni),means
was
(at a distant time),depart, heap,
mound,
to add, vanish, sink, spark, call(to a distance). Na, as " that thing," is the general'
suffix for
nouns
and adjectives,sometimes
replacedby
ra or lia.The
guttural consonantsmay
express disgust (as inthe
sound
of retching), orsomething
connected withthe-dropping
of the chin.For
theformer
meaning
we
have-the
common
suffixak
or ik, expressing dislike,un-pleasantness, also negation.
For
the latterwe
have
kana
(also kami, kaiena, kuna),meaning
mouth,
teeth,jaw, cheek, to speak, to sing, to reject.
It will
be observed
that in theexamples
given, onlythe first consonant, with the following
vowel
or diph-thong, enters into theargument.
The
sounds
rand
1have
other functions besides^that of indicating
motion
; they also denote emphasis,especially the r.
Of
course, amoving
thing hasmore-energy
than a stationary one. InNorman's
vocabulary,,the letter r is verv conspicuous; in
most
instances it ismerely
a phonetic device to assure a correctpronuncia-tion, but in others it probably indicates the throaty
bass-voices of the Aboriginal speakers.
This is practically the
whole
material of the speechof the
Tasmanian
Aborigines. All thingswere
distin-guishedaccordingto
two
ideas,namely, restand
motion..The
liquidconsonants
expressed motion,and
all theothers, rest.
This
is the explanation of the frequentinterchange of
sounds
withintwo
groups.By
adevelop-ment
of psychic activity, itcame
to pass that the dentalsounds
signified rest simply, the labials, rest attainedafter motion, the gutturals,
motion
after rest,and
the liquids, simple motion.From
these four groups, prac-ticallv representedby
four simple syllables, thewhole
speech
was
formed, as willappear
plausiblefrom
our
further demonstration.
There were
so few things of interest to theBY
HERMANN
B. RITZ, M.A.55:
number
of words.Of
course,any
particular thing couldnot
be
denoted
by
theirwords
exceptby
the aid ofgestures
and
convention, as in thenames
of personsand
places.
And
this explainswhy
the dialectswere
appa-rently foreign to each other.
What
would
inone
tribebe
named
afterits speed,would
in another take itsname
from
its habit or size. Indeed, Iam
inclined to hold,against the current theory that the
Tasmanians
had
nO' genericnames,
that theyhad
no
speciiic Avords,even
the
proper
nouns being
made
up
ofgeneric constituents.In the
examples
given so far,we
observed
chieflythe first consonant, with the following
vowel
wdiic'hmade
it audible,and took
no heed
ofanything
thatcame
after these.
The
vowels
were, as has alreadybeen
pointed out,so unstable as to be of
no importance
forour
demon-stration.
We
willnow
proceed
a step further,by
adding
another
consonant
to the syllable, with or withoutanother vowel, as
may
befound
convenient.From
the four primitivewords
we
derive twelvesecondary
terms, threefrom
each. It is evident,from
what
hasbeen shown,
that if thesecond consonant
isof the
same
class as the first, the result ismerely
a strengthening of the first,by
repetition.For
instance,lala, ant, is the swift
runner
; lane, to strike, flog, look, is repeated or forciblemotion
towards
some
object;mamana,
tongue, is the repeatedlymoving
pointedmember;
nala,manana,
earth, themovable
part of thesurface of the
ground
;nama,
whiteman,
the roverwho
has
no
tribe to stay with; nami, a stone than can berolled or carried or
thrown
; ralla, frog, theswimming
and hopping
thing, also energetic, full ofmovement;
rene,
run
; rilia, fingers,movable
limbs.The
first syllables utteredby
an infant are naturallypa, ba,
ma,
and
later, na, etc.Hence
we
have
inmost
languages
words
like baby,mama,
papa, nana. InTas-manian, too,
we
have
pawe, paAvawe, little child; ninamina,
(my)
mother, father.W^e
must
be
careful to avoid mistaking- the n of thenominal
sufifixna
for the finalconsonant
of the previous56
THE SPEECH
OP
THE TASMANIAN
ABORIGINES.We
shallhave
therefore the following twelvecom-binations
—
liquid+labial, liqiiid+dental, liquid+guttural,labial+dental, labial+guttnral, labial+liqiiid. dental+
guttural, dental+liquid, dental+labial, guttural+liquid,
guttural+labial, guttural+dental.
These
may
beillus-trated as follows:
—
(i) Liquid+labial
—
motion+purpose
: lapa,wing;
lapri, see, leipa, lopa, fire; lepena, eye; lepina, lepera,
neck
; lewana,wind
; lube,sheoak
tree (the bestfire-wood)
; lupari, free.Mapa,
black, the darknessmoving
over the skyand
earth, (avc
have
alsolewara, night); mebia,moving
awa}'.Newina,
eat; newitie,kangaroo
; niparana, face;
nubra, nupre, eye;nubena, crayfish
(motion
and purpose
are
shown
in the claws).Rabalga,
hand
(themember
which
takes); roba, torush
; ruwa, sand-lark;roba and
ruwa
areperhaps simplyro+pa, i.e.,
moving
cjuickly or energetically.(2) Liquid+dental
—
motion+rest
: lotta, tree (thatgrows
and
thenremains
at rest); lutana,moon
(wdiencecomes
the light that restson
the 'Carth),hence
light, asin ludo-wine, Avhite
man.
Mata, round
like a ball (whirlingand
then fixed);
mata, dead, to die
(moving and
then still); meta, rope orsinew (used for fastening
movable
things); mutta, bird(from its
plumpness
; the mutton-bird isprobably
themutta-bird).
IsTata, earth, soil (remaining still after being
moved)
:
nutiak, to retch (the suffix
ak
denoting the unpleasantfeeling
and
the peculiar sound).Retena, heart (with its intermittent motion): riatta, tree (like lotta); rudana, lazy
(when
in motion, longing for rest); rutta, hard, drv (dried fluid, e.g..mud
or blood).(3) Liquid+guttural
—
motion+rejection: lagana, foot(put
on
theground and
liftedup
again); laguana, toburn
oneself(withdrawing from
une, the fire); legana,lugana,
water (moving
away
in streamand
ebb); legara,to run
awav
; legunia, dress or covering (removableand
BY
HERMANN
B. RITZ, M.A.57
tothe
burning
sensation,v. laguana); loigana, snake, thefiery serpent.
Magra,
megra,
day, grass (i.e., that whicli passesaway)
;mengana,
to pull, get(move
away
from
itsplace);
miengpa,
to abstain, reject;moga, moka,
water;monga,
a fly (which is ever ready togo
away)
;
mugra,
to hide oneself;mukra,
spaniel (theswimming
beast):
mungena,
ear (projectingfrom
the head,and
ori-ginally movable).
Nangumora,
(very) far; nenga,canoe
(for leavingthe land); noki, give
me
(you giveaway
something)
;
nugara, to drink; nugrina, to
vomit
(both involvingmotion
ofthe gullet).Raka,
spear (sent forth); ragi or ragina, whiteman
•(the hostile, repulsive
moving
thing).We
find thisin-terpretation
confirmed
by
theword
ragi-rappa, ademon
who
attacks people, a devil;we remember
theChinese
denotation of white
men
as " foreign devils "; rugara,
ear
(compare
mungena)
; rurga,seaweed used
for food(compare
nugara, nugrina).(4) Labial+dental
—
projection+rest: patina,Qgg;
patroUa, spark, fire (projected, resting); rolla, energetic; there
may
also be a connection with " crackling"';
piterina,
sun
(as to its rays); poiete,head
(projectingfrom
the body, but stationary); potta malitie, freestone(white stone that can be
thrown
—
malitie, white).(5) Labial+guttural
—
projection+rejection: pagra,alas! (an utterance of pain)
; pakara, to fling at
(mo-tion
and
dislike); pakaria, shooting-star; pakaritia, ignisfatuus; panga, leech (an attacking, repulsive thing);
pangana,
mud
(clingingand
disagreeable); pegara, tothrow;
pegi, teeth (acting against each other);pugana,
black
man,
good
at attackand
defence,hence
strong,stout;
pugana,
five (the"
bunch
of fives"); pugara, toswim.
(6) Labial+licjuid
—
projection+motion
: palla, round,ball, energetic, large, stout, sun; palina,
egg
(smalland
round); palana, stars, little sun; pallawa,
man,
warrior(with
wa
as suffix of emphasis); penna, spear,man,
58
THE SPEECH
OF
THE TASMANIAN
ABORIGINES. parawe, tothrow,put,go
away
;parapa
or paraba,whale,,porpoise (large, moving") ;
perena
(spear); poirina,por-poise; pora,
heavy
rain; proie, leaf- pruana,smoke.
(7) Dental+guttural
—
rest+rejection: takani, tagara,to g'o
away
(to liftup
the footfrom
its resting position);dogna
(z^= tagana), foot; takira, root, footof tree; tanga,limpet; tegana, heart (its beating
being
likerhythmic
footsteps); togane,
paw,
foot; tokana, heel; tugra,thigh; tugana, swift (of foot); tuganik, asleep (the
pejo-rative, ik.
implying
negation; tugana, to eat (passingfrom
rest to themotion
of the gullet).(8) Dental+liquid
—
rest+motion
: tale, toad, frog(alternately resting
and
moving)
; talina, theback
(un-changing, but
moving
as part of thebody)
; talpe, to.come,
start ofif; tile, basket (an inanimate thingmeant
to
be
carried); toline,bark
of a tree(grown
fast to thetrunk, l^ut liable to peel off); toluna, shoulder
(compare
talina); tula, thigh,
tongue
(fixed, but movable).Tema,
hut(movable
resting place) ;time, never(really "always," " resting ormoving
";
compare
theFrench
jamais,
which
alsomeans
" always" (from the Latinjam, magis, i.e.,
now
and
evermore,and
isused
for" never"); tome, to fall.
Tana,
was
(lookingback from
the presentmoment)
:.tanate, mischief (pretending- to be resting,
and
yetmov-ing to
do
some
harm)
; tene, rib(compare
talina); tena,tree-fern (stationary, but
growing)
; toni, tenine, nailson
fingers
and
toes(compare
tena); tina,stomach
(compare
tula); tona, spark; tone, to dive, fall; toni, to call (to
cause to
move)
; tuna, Avinter, really"
snow
" (the solid,falling thing);tunapi,to
know
(tohave
the skillto act).Tara, to weep, really " to sit
down
and
sway
thebody
in
token
of grief"; tara, tree(compare
tena); tara.wal-laby
(compare
tale); teri, basket(compare
tile); terana,terina,
bones
of skeleton(compare
tene).The
bones
ofthe
body
are stationary, but growing. In the skeletonthey are chiefly noticeable for being
hard
and
dry. This meaning" is transferred to teruna, tro-watta, flintimple-ment
; torona, tree, is aform
of tra-na; tru, fist is so^called
from
itsbony
hardness; tura, winter; turana,.BY
HERMANN
B. RITZ, M.A.59
(9) Dental+labial
—
rest+projection: tapa,ham
:tab-rina (=; tapa-tab-rina), the back, a prolongation of the
ham;
tepara.
come;
tipla,eyebrow;
tapieti, tabelti, to travel;this
word
issupposed
to bean
imitation of theEnglish
equivalent, but it is not probable that that
word was
used
so frequently as equivalent of " to walk," thatpractically all the tribes incorporated it in their
vocabu-lary.
According
toour
theory, tapieti is simplytap-let-i, i.e., the
hams
alternatelymoving
forward
and'resting; takleti
would
refer to thesame
action ofthe-legs or the feet; but
we
findnumerous
instances of thegroup
pi,and
veryfew
of thegroup
kl; the latter seems,to have
been
difficult or disagreeable to theTasmanians
;;tapieti
would
make
an
excellent substitute for theob-jectionable takleti.
The
probability of theexchange
is.confirmed Idv the alternative
form
kableti for tableti. (10) Guttural+liquid—
rejection+motion: kole, totwitch, snatch
away
; koliena, orphan,whose
parents-have been
taken away. In further confirmation ofour
remark
regarding
thegroup
kl,we
find that thesetwo
words
are practicallyalone inbeginning
with the syllablekal, kel, kol, etc.
Kami, mouth,
teeth, tongue,probably
owes
its kto-the
movement
of the chin (v. supra) ; Ave findmany
words
belonging
to thismeaning
ofkm,
but veryfew
signifying rejection.
Of
the latter,however,
we
have
acharacteristic one;
komptena,
a spirit of evil,objection-ably
moving
near tohuman
beings, tenabeing
akin tO'tanate, mischief (v. supra).
Kana,
voice, noise, song, speech, evidentlybelongs
to the "chin "
group
ofk
sounds.H.
Ling
Roth's listsgive
no
kan words
of the other; indeed, thenumber
ofwords
beginning
withk
is comparatively small; thesound
of rejection is usuallyfound
at theend
of aword.
Krakne,
krakena, to rest, sitdown,
ismade
up
ofkara
and
the negationk and
the suffix ne or ena,which
properly belong's to
nouns
; kara-kwould
thenmean
''disagreeable
motion?
No!"
We
find kroti (quickmotion), kronie (to climb), both
implying
exertionswhich
theAborigines
disliked./6o
THE SPEECH
OF
THE TASMANIAN
ABORIGINES.kepegine, to eat, but these are evidently
composed
ofka, jaw,
and
pegi, teeth.(12) Guttnral+dental
—
rejection+rest:kate, kaita,bad
(i.e.,
do
notlike it, leave it alone); katala, snake, thebad
moving" thing; katela or katila, seal,
and
katina,cow,
would
alsobe
so called if theAborigines
were
at firstafraid of
them
; kote, quick, is akin to kroti (v. supra),but there is a curious
development
of the idea in koti, little, kaita,dog
(small beast), the idea of quicknessand
smallness
being
easily associated,and
from
the idea of''
small"
we
readilypass to thatof " pet."Compare
also " cat ''and
kitten." Again, there is a connectionbetween
koti
and
kate (v. supra); as theAborigines
calledagood
or
greatman
pallawa orpugana,
theywould
naturallycall a little thing, kate, bad.
Kotube,
to tug at a rope,is expressive of the resistance of
an
inertmass
to theaction of pulling (
—
be or pe).The
examples
here given will suffice for thepurpose
of illustrating the principle; their
number
might
easilyhave
been
augmented.
Insome
cases thesame
word
was
made
to serve intwo
places. Thiswas
done because
there
was
a plausible alternative,and because
it is quitepossible that different speakers
named
thesame
thingon
sligfhtlydifferent principles.The
orthography
is thatof
H. Ling
Roth's lists: phonetic, not always consistent,but sufficiently accurate for our present purpose.
It will
have
been
noticed that the interchange ofkindred
sounds
is not detrimental to the clearness of themeaning
of words,and
that thevowels
areremarkably
variable.
Before
we
proceed
to the illustration of our theory in the case of longer words, it will be necessary todraw
special attention to the variation of speech sounds.
'Here it is difficult to decide in each case
whether
thevariation is
due
to the general instability of theAboriginal orthoepy, or to the difference of dialects, or
to the insincerity of the Aborigines,
who
would
prob-ably not
be
eager to deprive themselves of themeans
of secret
communication
with each other, or to thede-fectiveperceptivity ofthe recorders, orto their linguistic
idiosyncrasies, or to careless writing or transcription of
BY
HERMANN
B. RITZ, M.A. 5jvStill, in
most
instances, the differencesand
analogies,.,taken
together, are snflficientl_v consistent to allow usto formulate
some
general rules.We
must
remember,
also, that thelanguage
did notspring into existence in the
form
recorded,though
it did,no
doubt, begin in aform
completely satisfyingall the requirements at that time. If
my
theory iscor-rect, the four
words
on which
all the rest are builtshow-an
absolutely primitiveform
ofhuman
speech; previousto it there can
have
been no
linguistic thought,and
the utterance
must
have been
confined to inarticulateanimal cries.
The
subsequent
word-formation
was
a
subconscious operation,
based
on
heredity, environment,,and
habit turned to instinct.The
primitive state inwhich
theTasmanian
Abo-rigines
were found by
theEuropeans,
argues that theirlogical skill
had been
confined to theimmediate needs
of their bodies,
and
that theirlanguage
was
in asimi-larl}^ primitive state.
The
fourwords
still sufficed toexpress their thougdits,
and
thus their recorded speechcarries us
back
to thebeginning
ofhuman
society.Thus,
the four syllablesform
thepermanent
skeletonof the
Tasmanian
language,and
their combinationsand
variations are the body,
which
is specifically differentin each individual,
though
genericallv it is thesame
in^all.
We
may
now
statesome
general principles of varia-tion:—
(i)
Medial and
initialg
is often elided, replacedby
w
or y, or represented
by
o or u.This
phenomenon
is observed in severalEuropean,
languages,
ranging
from
Greek
to English. InTas-manian
we
have, e.g.,proguna
and
pruana,smoke;
pruga, paruga,
bosom
; perenna, spear;and
proina,proigh, proingha, broii, proibi, big;
ganna and
yanna,teeth; ngune, une,
wane,
fire; kana,wana,
ona, to speak.(2)
The
places of thevowels
arechosen
arbitrarily.We
may
have
prosthetic vowels, as in ali, good,,,which seems
identical with li,moving,
alive, useful;anamana,
hand,from namana,
strong;enganema,
eagle-hawk, from
ngonina, bird,which
is in itselfderived from,,52
THE SPEECH
OF
THE TASMANIAN
ABORIGINES.Again,
we
have
regularlyan
epitlietic vowel, a, e, ori; every
word
is anexample
of this.Within
theword,
thevowels
found
placeswhere
theycould.
We
have
treinia, terinia, taranienna, triunia for"hard-beaked
bird," e.g., owl,crow;
ria, rilia, riena,raiana, for
hand
;raumpta and
raumata, forwombat
;
pengana, panugana,
pugrena, pugerinna, for dirt;lan-.gana, languna, lugana, langna, dogna, lagerra, for foot ;
lowanna,
nowana,
Iowa, loanna, loa, loalla, lowla, forwoman;
leni, loa, liena, lia, lina, for water.(3)
Within
their respective groups, theconsonants
may
be freely interchanged. This has alreadybeen
touched
upon,and
will be further illustrated in thesequel.
III.—
ETYMOLOGY.
It is
beyond
the scope of our present research toexamine
all thewords
recordedby
H.
Ling
Roth,whose
list, as has already
been
stated,may
be
considered aspractically complete. It Vv^ill be sufficient to deal with
such a
number
ofthem
as will enable a critic to testour
theory.
We
shall takeNorman's
list for theEastern
speech,and
Miiligan's for the Southern, Eastern,and
North-western
and
Western
words. Unfortunately Milligandid not discriminate
between
the lasttwo
dialects, but this is not of great importance, as theyhave
much
incommon
with each other.We
shall findsome
instances ofonomatopoetic
words, such as pratteratta, hail,
from
which
we
getparatta, ice, frost; but
we
need
notdo
more
thanacknowledge
the existence of such words, as theircon-nection with our theory is remote,
and
possiblymerely
accidental.
Nor
need
we
take notice of evidently interjectionalwords, for
we
are notnow
concerned
with the origin oflanguage
generally, but Avith the elementsand
develop-ment
of the speech of theTasmanian
Aborigines.I
have
dissectedsome
1,200Tasmanian
words, butshall confine
my
present discussion to amuch
smallernumber
of characteristic specimens, taking, them,BY
HERMANN
B. RITZ, M.A. 5^THE
'EASTERN SPEECH.
Bungana,
chief—
same
aspugana.
Bairkiitana, horse
—
par, big; kut, quick; na.nominal
suffix.
Kumienna,
weak
—
kami, voice; ienna, diminutivesuffix.
Karana,
quiet—
ka, not; ra,moving.
Kukanna,
noise,much
talk—
kana, voice; ku,redu-plication for emphasis.
Krawala,
cold—
kra, stiff; wala^=rpalla,very
much.
Kanara,
little (child),magpie
—
kan, voice; ra,con-tinuous.
Kanaliria, conversation
—
kan, voice; li, quick; ri,continuous.
Kamina,
chin—
ka,jaw;
mina3=rpena, projection.Kuegi,
head
—
ka
ka,mouth,
jaw, cheeks; thewhole
face;
round
; spherical.Kanawelegana,
sing—
^kan, voice; we, active; leg,rh3'thmical.
Ivomtina,
dog
—
ka(m), teeth; tin,projecting.Kaitagunamena,
friend—
ka,tongue
; tag, foot;
nam^na,
hand
(inmy
service).Kulugana,
claw, talon; ka, tooth, (ofthe) lug, foot.Kawurrina,
bush
fire—
ka, eatingup
; wur:;=pur,solid,
ground.
Kotruolutie,
baby
—
kot, little;ruo^^nug,
drink,suck;
lut, white; ie, diminutive.Query:
Were
theyoung
babies of paler
complexion
than the adults? It is thecase elsewhere.
Koti malitie,
young
boy
or girl—
koti,young;
ma=:rpa, very; lit, bright, fair; ie, diminutive.
Lia litea,
ocean
—
li,water
; lit, bright, sparklingripples; ia, diminutive. This appears also in the
form
of lieltia, rollers
on
thebeach
(with white crests).Liopakanapuna,
salt—
lia, sea; pug, solid; peun,sharp, burning.
Lagapak,
fiddle—
lag, leg, stick,bow
; pa,moving
;
k, not getting
away
; or simplypa
ka,moving
forward
64
THE SPEECH
OF
THE TASMANIAN
ABORIGINES.Liawe,
open
—
li,move
; we, let,make.
Leiemtoniak,
ashamed—
len, look; ton,downwards
;k,, bad.
Lackaniampaoik, bandy-legged
—
lag, leg; nia, bent;pe, stick; k, bad.
Leiriak, bitter
—
li,water
; ri, restless (of the sea); k,bad.
Leware,
night—
Ing, lie; war,ground.
Lalina,
day
—
lin, see; 1, reduplicated, plenty.Lila, gun,
waddy
—
li 'li, very swift, flying.Lowanakana,
circle—
low,woman;
kan, sing; thesinging
women
standing or sitting ina circle.Langta, long, far
—
len,move
on
; t stop: a distantpoint.
Luga
perenna, survivor—
lug,walk
away
; pe, very ;ren, quickly.
Lugana,
foot, oyster—
the oyster lies fiat like thesole of the foot.
Lowa,
woman
—
lug, foot;wa, active; thewoman
had
t'O
do
all thework
of the tribeexcept hunting
and
fight-ing.
Lingena, languna, loangare, likangana, likura
—
wind,to
blow
; len, continuous motion.^
Lietinna, cold water
—
li, water; tuna, cold.Liena
peuniak, scaldingwater
—
li, water; pe, very;
un, fire; k, bad.
Lenigugana,
stars—
len, see; kuka,round
things.Miengpa,
abstain—
niien=wien,
bend, turnaway
from, not; pa, doing.
Mianabere,
kneel—
mien,bend;
pere, leg.Mealle, kneel
—
mial,bend
; leg, leg.Mealli tonerragetta, inactive
—
mealli,knee
; to(ka),heel; narra, very; kita, small, useless.
Mikrakaniak,
sick—
mie, not; kraka, rest, sleep; k,bad.
Miengkommenechana,
anger
—
mien, distorted,pro-jecting;
kamina,
chin; kana, speak.Munnagana,
ankle—
mien,bend
; leg, foot.Malitie, white
—
ma=rpa,
very; kit, shining.Mientonka, tumble
—
mien, bend,knee
; ton, fall; k,BY
HERMANN
B. RITZ, M.A. 65Mienintiak, tremble
—
mien,bend
; inti=^inni, a little;k, bad.
Marana,
battle (few killed)—pa, hit; ren, run.Monna
perenna, snlky, pouting"—
muna,
lips;
perenna, projecting.
Manina
langatik, steal—
mar^^mie, not; nina,yours
;langt (take) far awa}'; k, bad.
Malangena,
child—
Ma3=;mie, not; lag, foot,move,
walk
; in, dimin.Manugana,
spawn
offrog=perhaps
thesame
asmalangena,
with a possiblechange from
ina (dear littleone), to kana, croaker.
Miamengana,
battle—
mien
mien,knee
toknee
; kana,yell.
Mienemiento,
kill—
mien, mien, battle; t, stop, strikedown.
Mungwenia,
grub
—
mien,bend
;wen=:pen,
stick;
i, small.
Mungena,
ear—
mung
r= mien
=
pen, projecting,round.
Mongana,
blowfly—
Mung,
round.Mungunna,
fish—
mung-winna, round and
long.Mungienna,
porcupine
—
mung-ienna,
round
and'little.
Mingawina.
porpoise—
v.mungunna.
Mugana,
shag
(bird)—
mung,
round,plump
; itmay
also
be
a doublet of nagana, lagana, flappingthing, bird.Mana,
a fly—
man-a,
round, or a contraction ofmon-gana.
Makana,
star-fish—magz=mung,
round.The
transi-tion
from
man
tomang
and
then tomag
is quite natural.,Xi, there,
behold
! withemphatic
k
—
neka, niga,there; with
emphatic
r—
nara, very, he, she, they, self.Nune,
take—
ni, ni, there!
Numbe,
here—
ni, ni, pe, here indeed;lumbe
is a. doublet of this.Nunamara,
deduct—
Nune,
take; mare, one.Nentega meniawa,
yesterday—
ni ni, not at all; teg,,sleep;mi, I; ni,
you
; wa,do
—
when
lastwe
were
56
THE SPEECH
OF
THE TASMANIAN
ABORIGINES.Niettamina, littlebrother
—
ni,you
; etta, little; mina,my
own,
my
own
little one.Nianti mina, little sister
—
nia nitia mina, the same.Nunalmina,
father—
ni,you
; al,good
; mina,my
own
!
Nienna,
mother
—
ni,you
; enna, dear littlemother.
Neing-mina,
mother
—
nienna mina,my
own
littlemother.
The
addition of the endearingterm
mina
tothese
words
shows
again the affectionate, childlikedis-position of the Aborigines.
Nelumie,
help—
ni, 3'OU;lumbe:r=numbe,
here.Nuna
mina,good
—
ni ni, these things; mina, forme
!Nolle,
bad
—
no
ali, not good.Nierina,
hawk—
nie=mie,
in a circle; rin, flying.Narra
muna,
yes—
narra, that;muna,
projecting,evident.
Nebele,
music
—
ne=le,
lively; pe,make
; leg, feet.Oana,
tell, speak—
probably
from kana
;wana would
be
better spelling; there are sofew
words
in o that theyare
probably
misprints.Punie, finger nail
—
doublet of toni (supra).Plegana, leg
—
pa, strong; leg, leg.Pugali,
swim
—
'puga,man
; li, water.Poingana, hair
—
pen, spear, stick; hair dressed inform
of sticks.Puganina,
husband
—
puga,man
; nina, that—
-thatman,
" he."Patrollana,
musket
—
patrol, fire; len, flying.Poiniakana, laugh, facetious
—
pe, sharp; ia, little;kan,
sounds-Pugoneori,
-smile—
^pe, sharp; kan, voice; ali, kind,good.
Rinneaguanettia, dispute
—
rin, cjuick; ia, short; kan,words
; ettia, trifling things.The
form
guan
forkan
sup-plies the missing link of the series kan, guan,
wan,
oan. Riawieak, full (after a meal)—
ria, feet; pe, active
;
ak, with difficulty.
Rinieta, chase
—
rin,run
; ia, hitherand
thither; t,stop
—
run tillyou have
it.Riakuna,
dance
and
song
—
ria, foot; kana, voice;an
BY
HERMANN
B. RITZ, M.A. 67Toiina, fire, literally, spark
—
compare
with tuna,snow.
These
contrarieshave
parallels inEuropean
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 contractionof tonina,would
be a " small, falling thing,and
in this respectwoudl
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, periodicdownward
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 ispe—
strong,moving,
projecting.\¥uga, wutta,
wughta,
earth; pug, solid; ta,sta-tionary.
Warra-na, bark
of tree, shell,anything
curved, bluesky, vault, cloud shape, ghost; pura, pulla, round.
THE SOUTHERN
SPEEICH.
The
words
bear thesame
general character as thoseof the
Eastern
speech.The
separate list is givenbe-cause Milligan
and
Norman
based
the distinctionon
thedomicile of the Aborigines they
examined,
and
because
slight differences of pronunciation
may
thusbe
dis-cerned. It is
now
impossible to assign shades ofmean-ing
to particular tribes; but this is immaterial, as themeaning
of speechsounds
varied in every individual,within definite limits, of course.
Koka, ruddy
cheeks, blood, red. This is aredupli-cated ka, chin; it
would
refer to the strikingly red colourof the
gums,
tongue, etc.,and
thusassume
the generalmeaning
of "red."We
have
seen kuegi, head,from
the
same
kaka, as thesum
of these parts; but itsmean-ing