Page:An Australian language as spoken by the Awabakal.djvu/68

 Iviii INTHOBTJCTIOIf.

2G. The Dravidiau verb is agglutinative ; particles are added on to the stem in order to express mood, tense, causation, negation, &c., no change being made on the stem. Tiilu and Gond — botli uncultured dialects — are exceptionally rich in moods and teuses. All this applies to the Australian, the Ebudan, and the Fijian verbs.

27. In Dravidian, there are no relative pronouns. So in Australian ; for ' this is the book which you gave me,' a native would say ' this is the book ; you gave it me.'

28. In Canarese, kodu, 'to give,' is used as a permissive. In Awabakal, biin is the permissive, and appears to be formed from ba, a root-form meaning 'to make.' In English, the conditional conjunction 'if is for ' gif,' 'give.'

29. The Dravidian verb has no passive, nor has the Australian. For ' it was broken,' our natives would say ' broken by me (you, ttc.) '; a Dravida would say, 'it became broken through me.'

30. In Dravidian there are two futures — (I) a conditional future, and (2) a sort of indeterminate aorist future. For the latter, the Malayalam adds -um to the verbal noun which is the base of the future. In Awabakal there are three futures ; the third is an aorist future and adds -nun to the verbal stem in -illi (see pages 25, 28 adjinem). Tliis -nun is probably equi- valent to a formative -un with n interposed between the vowels to prevent hiatus. In Tamil also n (for d') is similarly inserted in verbs; as, padi(«)an, 'I sang.'

XL TuE Origin of the Austealiak Eace.

From these analogies and from the general scope of my argu- ment in this Introduction, the reader perceives that I wish to prove a kinship between the Dravidian race and the Australian. This opinion I expressed in print more than ten years ago Avhen it was not so generally held as it is now. Some of the very highest authorities have formed the same opinion from evi- dence other than that of language. But a theory and arguments thereon must be shown to be antecedently possible or even pro- bable before it can be accepted ; and to furnish such a basis of acceptance, one must go to the domain of history. This I now do.

In my opinion the ultimate home of origin of the negroid population of Australia is Babylonia. There, as history tells us, mankind first began to congregate in great numbers, and among them the Hamites, the progenitors of the negro races. It seems to have been those Hamites who were the first to tiy to break down the love-law of universal brothei'hood and equality; for Nimrod was of their race, and wished to establish dominion over his fellows, and to raise an everlasting memorial of his power, like those which his kindred afterwards reared in Egypt. This attempt was frustrated by the ' Confusion of tongues,' at

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