Page:An Australian language as spoken by the Awabakal.djvu/60

 1 INTBODUCTION.

there is a great variety of consonants in use for this purpose. The -kanne seems to be a softer form of -kannai or -kanmai, the -mai being a common formative. The -ta of number 5 is a de- monstrative which is used al)undantly in the language as a strengthening particle ; and the -to is the agent-nominative form (see pp. lO, 11) of -ta. The -geil of number 6, or, as I write it, -gel, seems to me to be of the same origin as the suffix -kill (see page 18) ; a corresponding word in Di'avidian is kal, 'a place.' The -ye of number 2 denotes a continued action, and may be the same as the impei-ative form -ia, that is -iya.

In the list given above, 'a magistrate' is called wiinkiye be- cause he ' commits' the culpi'it to jail, and 'the watch-house' or jail is therefore wiinkilligel. The wirroballikan arc the 'light- horse,' who act as an escort to the Governor of the colony, and the place where they are housed is therefore wirroballigel. In the Gospel, the disciples of Christ are called wirroballikan, and their following of Him for instruction — their discipleship — is wirro- balli-kanne-ta. Biinkillikanne may be a 'musket,' because it ' strikes' with a ball, or it may be a ' hammer,' a ' mallet,' which gives 'blows.'

The reader has observed that all the verbals in the first column above contain the syllable -illi, and, as that table has given us examples of synthesis, it may be j^rofitable now to examine the formation of Australian words by employing etymological analysis. With this view, I take up the Awabakal verb takilliko, 'to eat,' and I take this word, because the idea expressed by it is so essential to a language, that it is impossible that the word should be a loan-word. Now, the verb ' to eat ' has, in Australian, many forms, such as thalli, dalli, thaldinna, thilala, dira, chakol, taka, tala, and, in Tasmania, tuggara, tughli, te-ganna. Of all these, the simplest is taka, wjiich is used by the northern portion of the Kuriggai tribe (see map) in N. S. Wales. On com- paring taka and tala, it is evident that the simple root is ta, and all the others come from this; chakol, for instance, is ta palatalized intoca, with -kal added; di-ra has the sufhx -ra added on to the root ta, vocalized into di ; and dira gives the universal Australian word for the ' teeth,' just as the Sanskrit dant, 'a tooth ' {cf. Lat. dens), is a participial form of the verb ad, 'to eat.' The Tasmanian words, which I have here restored to something like a rational mode of spelling, are clearly the same as the Aus- tralian. Nor is the root ta contined to Australia ; it is spread all over the East as ta or ka. In Samoa (Polynesian), it is tau-te, <aM-mafa, and 'ai, that is (k)ai; in Aneityum (Melanesian), it is caig ; in Efate, kani ; in Duke of York Island, ani, wa-gan ; in Motu (New Guinea), ania ; in New Britain, an, van. The Dravi- dian is un, and the Sanskrit is ad and khad. Our English word

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