Page:An Australian language as spoken by the Awabakal.djvu/32

 XXU INTRODrCTION.

carried to Australia throu<j;h the Dravidian form pira, they abundantly justify my arguments as to the origin of the Austra- lian word pir, 'one,' and birung, 'away from.' In New Britain pirai means ' odd,' 'not a "round" number' {rf. the game of 'odds and evens '), and this sense must be from a numeral meaning 'one.' In the Ebudan* language of Efate, 'a voice came from heaven' is nafisan sikei i milu elagi mai, in which milu elagi signifies ' away from (direction from) the sky.' Here milu is identical in form and meaning with the AAvabakal birung. ^Further, in New Britain and in the Duke of York Is. (Melanes- ian), ka, kan mean ' from,' kapi, with verbs of motion, implies 'motion from,' and kabira means 'on account of.' These cor- resi)oud very well with the forms and uses of the Awabakal post- positions kai, ka-birung, kiu-birung. The simple form biru is therefore cognate to the Sanskrit para, Gr., para, 'from.'

Scm3 further light on this lioint may be got from another quarter. The Hebrew preposition corresponding to birung is min, or, •without the ??, mi, mii ; in form this is not far removed from the bi of birung. Min, originally, is a noun meaning a ' part,' and, in its use as a preposition, it answers first to the partitive genitive or the preposition ex in the classic languages ; then, from this primary notion, it is used to signify a ' departing from' anyplace, 'distance from,' 'proceeding or 'receding from'; in these respects it corresponds exactly with the Australian birung. Now, miin, (minj, ' a part,' comes from the Heh. root manah, 'to divide.' But, in Dravidian, the verb 'to divide' is per, piri, and that also is a close approximation to our Australiau birung. In the chief Dravidian dialects, 'a part', 'a jjortion' is pal; this again brings us to the Shemitic pala, parash, and many other forms of that verb, meaning 'to share,' ' to separate,' &c., and to the Sanskrit phal, 'to divide,' Gr. meiromai, 'I share,' mer OS, 'apart,' Lat. pars, and a host of Avords from these. Now, if birung be the Dravidian piri, per, and if piri, per be the same word as the Sanskrit pal and the Jleb. pala, and if these are all original root-words belonging to a common stock, I cannot see how it is possible for anyone to avoid the force of the argument from this that our Australian indigenes have a share in a common ancestry, and that, in language, their imme- diate ancestors are the Dravidians of India.

Results in this Section are : — Preposition forms to mean 'before' are, in the primitive languages, pro^ pri^pro, prae,pru; other forms are j9«r-«, par-os, pur-as ; modes of all these a.re,fra, fru, vor, Jbre, and, without the initial letter, ro, ru, air ; the Lithu-

more convenient to handle than 'New Hebridean. ' The languages spoken on New Britain, New Ireland, Duke of York Island, Solomon Islands, JSanta Cruz, and Banks Islands I call ' Albanuic ' {cf. Lat. Albion), and any root-words which arc found in the JNlalay, Melanesian, and Pulyuesian languages I call ' Sporadic. '
 * I have made the word ' Ebudan ' (Lat. Ehndes insidae), and use it as

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