Page:An Australian language as spoken by the Awabakal.djvu/54

xliv The other Australian base-form of the first pronoun is ba, and this, in the forms of ma, me, mi, mo, is so common in all languages that I need scarcely quote more than Sanskrit mad (the base), 'I'; the Græco-Latin emou, mou; mihi, me; and the English, ' we.' This base, ba, gives us the Awabakal simple nomi- native bág&#x34F;&#x307; (for ba-ag&#x34F;&#x307;), -ag&#x34F;&#x307; being one of the most common of Australian formatives. Then, of the possessive form, emmo-úg&#x34F;&#x307;, which I would write emo-ug&#x34F;&#x307;, I take the e to be merely enunciative, the -úg&#x34F;&#x307; being a possessive formation; the mo that remains is the same as in the Australian mo-to, wo-kok, 'I,' the Papuan, mōu, 'I.' The Awaliakal ba-li, 'we two '(both being present), is ba + li, where the -li is probably a dual form.

The Awabakal accusative of the first pronoun is tia, or, as I would write it, tya or ća; cf. guća and úncá. This tia appears again in the vocative ka-tio-u, and is, I think, only a phonetic form of the ta which I have already examined.

I think, also, that the Hebrew pronoun an-oki, ' I,' is connected with our root ak, at, ta; for it seems to be pretty well assured that the an- there is merely a demonstrative particle placed before the real root-form -ok-i; for the Egyptian pronouns of the first and second persons have it (-an, -ant, -ent) also. And this quite corresponds with our Awabakal pronouns of the first and second })ersons, ga-toa and gin-toa; for, in my view, they both begin with a demonstrative ga, which exists also in Polynesian as a prothetic nga, nge. In Awabakal, I see it in g&#x34F;&#x307;a-li, 'this,' g&#x34F;&#x307;a-la, 'that,' and in the interrogative g&#x34F;&#x307;an, 'who'? for interrogatives come from a demonstrative or indefinite base (cf. the word minyug&#x34F;&#x307; on page 3 of the Appendix). Here again, in the Awabakal word gan, 'who' ? we are brought into contact with Aryan equivalents; for, if gan is for ka-an, as seems likely, then it leads us to the Sanskrit ka-s, 'who'? Zend, cvañt = Latin quan-tus? Latin, quod, ubi, &c, Gothic, hvan = English, 'when'? Lithuanian, kà-s, 'who'? Irish, can, 'whence'? Kymric, pa, 'who'? Greek, pōs, ' how '? po-then, ' whence '?

In the Australian plural forms g&#x34F;&#x307;éanni, g&#x34F;&#x307;éen, we have again the prefix demonstrative g&#x34F;&#x307;a, but now softened into g&#x34F;&#x307;e (cf. the Maori prefix nge) because of the short vowel that follows. The next syllable, an, is a liquid form of ad, ta, 'I,' and the ni may be a pluralising addition — the same as in the Papuan ni-mo. It should here be remembered, howevei-, that the Australian languages seldom have special forms for the plural; for ta may mean either 'I' or 'we'; to indicate the plural number some pluralising word must be added to ta; thus in Western Australia ' we' is gala-ta, literally 'all-I.' Some pronouns, however, seem to have absorbed these suffix