Page:An Australian language as spoken by the Awabakal.djvu/31

 INTRODUCTION". XXI

one common, althougli ancient, origin, and t^^at, in the essential Avords 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 primus is for pri-imus {cf. Sk. pra-thamas, 'first'), in which the root pri, not unlike pir, is the same as the Latin pro andprae. 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, 'aprince,' 'a president' {cf. piriwal), 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 ov f, and say ro, ru, air, ari, to mean ' before.' In the Malay region ar-uug 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 Samoau i lu-ma means ' in front,' and in Malay de-ahi-wan ; these are like ru ; in Aneityum, a Papuan island of the New Hebrides, a ' chief is called natimi arid, where natimi means 'man,' and arid is 'high,' 'exalted,' doubtless from the same root asariki; and arid is to ariki as the Latin procerus, ' tall,' to proceres, ' chief's.' Prom the abraded from ru I take the New Britain* word lua (Samoan lua'i;, ' first.'

In the Dravidian languages of India, from which quarter, as I suppose, our Australian languages have come, there is a close parallel to our word pir, for pir a means 'before,' and pir an is ' a lord.' Dravidian scholars themselves acknowledge that pir an comes from the Sanskrit preposition pra, ' before'; this corroborates my derivation of the Australian word piriwal and the Maori ariki. The Aroma dialect of New Guinea says pira- na, ' face'; and in my opinion this pirana bears the same rela- tion to the Dravidian pira that the Latin frons has to the pre- position pro, the Samoan mua-ulu to mua, 'first,' and the English fore-head, to be-fore. The Motu dialect says vaira for ' face, front'; I take this to be a metathesis of pira, for the Motu also says vaira-nai, 'before'; another dialect says vari ; with this compare pro, para, and frons. The negroes, to the west of Khartoum, also say ber, bera, for ' one.'

The Australian postposition bir-ung, ' away from,' seem.s to be connected with this root in the same way as the Greek para. The dictionary meanings of the Sanskrit preposition pra are "■ before,' ' away,' 'beginning'; now, if these three meanings were

east of New Guinea, aiid Duke of York Island — a name corrupted by the natives into Tukiok — is a small island in the straits between these two. The natives of all these are Papuans.
 * New Britain and New Ireland are two tolerably large islands lying to the

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