Page:An Australian language as spoken by the Awabakal.djvu/173

 THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE.

This work was intended to be a paper for the Ethnological Society of London, to accompany some very interesting researches and observations made by a friend, relative to the customs and language of the aborigines of this colony. Through his making an inquiry respecting the meaning and difference of the words ba and ka, either of which can only be rendered into our language by the verb to he in some one or other of its modifica- tions, I was led to the tracing out of the various meanings of many particles of a similar description, so that the work swelled to a size much larger than was) anticipated. It was, therefore, thought advisable to print the work in its present form, especi- ally as a public announcement asks for " A book, printed with colonial type, filled with colonial matter, and bound and orna- mented with colonial materials," for presentation at the lioyal National Exhibition, London, 1851.

The subject is purely colonial matter, namely, the language of the aborigines, now all but extinct ; and the other conditions have been strictly attended to, as far as the circumstances of the colony would allow, the paper alone being of English manufac- ture. The author was the first to trace out the language of the aborigines, and to ascertain its natural rules ; his " Australian Grammar" was published here in the year 1834, under the aus- pices of his late Majesty's Government, by the Society for Pro- moting Christian Knowledge, which generously carried the work through the press free of expense. His late Majesty King William IV. was graciously pleased to accept a copy of the book, and direct it to be placed in his library. Copies were likewise forwarded to several public institutions in England and elsewhere, where, it is presumed, they may still be found, — a testimony against the contemptible notion entertained by too many, who flatter them- selves that they are of a higher order of created beings than the aborigines of this land, whom they represent as " mere baboons, having no language but that in common with the brutes !"; and who say, further, that the blacks have " an innate deficiency of intellect, and consequently are incapable of instruction." But if the glorious light of the blessed Gospel of God our Saviour had never shed its divine lustre around the British Crown, or never penetrated the hearts of the people with its vivifying power, the aborigines of Albion's shores might still have remained in the state described by the eloquent Cicero, in one of his epistles to his friend Atticus, the Roman orator ; for he says, " Do not obtain your slaves from Britain, because they are so stupid and utterly incapable of being taught that they are not Jit to form a part of the household of Atticus ! "

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