Page:An Australian language as spoken by the Awabakal.djvu/40

 XXX INTRODUCTION.

'two' or 'second' is 'that which /b7Zoi<'.?'; of the root hu other forms are hu, hi, j)i, ma, ono, mn, fu, fo, and it ; from via, mu, come Dravidian words meaning ' to turn,' ' to change '; and from the same root-forms there are, in the JSew Hebrides, New Britain, and Polynesia, numerous words in the sense of 'follow,' 'again,' ' another,' "^a couple,' 'also.' The Melanesian word mu-le, 'again,' and the Malay ^;?f-Zrr, 'again,' connect themselves, not only with the Dravidian via-ru, mu-ru, but also with the Sanskrit word 2)u-nar, 'back,' 'again,' and also with the Greek ^ja-Z/w, 'again.'

YI. Other Test-words. Words for ' Water; 'Blind; 'Eye:

(a). lu dealing with the Australian words for 'water,' 'fire,' 'sun,' 'eye,' &e., I must use brevity. All these can be proved to have their roots in India, and to have stems and branclies from these roots in Aryan Europe, in Malay lands, and in the islands of the South Seas. ¥irst, let US'* take uj) the word for ' water.'

Collins quotes bado as the Port Jackson word for 'water'; others write it badu ; it is found in various parts of our colony and in AYestern Australia. The root is ba, ma, and the du is a suffix; du is also in Dravidian a formative to neuter nouns. The root ma means 'to be liquid,' 'to flow.' It is a very old word; for the Assyrian cuneiform inscriptions have mami, 'waters,' and this is a plural by reduplication; the Hebrew has mo, ma(i), 'water,' mo a, 'to flow'; the ancient Egyptian has mo, 'water,' Avhence, according to some, the name Moses ; the Sanskrit has ambu (am ^or ma, by metathesis), 'water;' the Keltic has amhainn, abhuinn, 'a river,' whence comes the river-name, 'Avon.' From ma come the words wai and vai which are so common for 'water' in the J>J^ew Hebrides and in the Polynesian islands, and from the same root, in a sense known to the Arabs, by an appropriate euphemism, as 'the water of the feet,' come the Melanesian and Polynesian words mi, mim, mi mi, miaga, &c., the Sanskrit mih and the Keltic mun. From am (=rab = ap) comes tlie Sanskrit plural form tip as, 'water,' while from ma may come the Latin mad-idiis, 'wet.' We found that wa-kul, 'one,' comes from root ba, ma; so, from the root of ba-du, comes the Australian word wa-la, which means 'rain,' and in some places, ' water.'

As to the kindred of our Sydney badu, I would remind you that ' water,' ' rain,' ' sea,' and ' wave,' are cognate ideas ; hence the Samangs, who are the jS'egritos of the peninsula of Malacca, say bat-eao for 'water'; the Motu of New Gruinea say medu, 'rain,' batu-gu, 'shower'; the Aneityumese in-cau-pda,* 'rain';

New Britain word Lata, 'rain'; au in Samoan is 'a current.'
 * Call is the Fijian tan, 'to fall as rain,' and -pda is the same as the

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