Page:The Aborigines of Victoria and Riverina.djvu/178

173 to endeavour to compile a work on these diverse tougues [sic], with the view of its having general application. An endemic production of the kind would be practicable enough, as can be seen by the vocabulary at the end; but then the value thereof would be absolutely nil outside the limits of the tribe from whose language it might be compiled.

It would scarcely be according to the notions of anyone outside a lunatic asylum either, to have a vocabulary of each dialect in this country collated. It would be infinitely better to have the aboriginal principle carried out in all its entirety (i.e., their persistent endeavour to forget) as regards their own tongues, and have the English language taught instead.

The Nyallow Wattows (postmen), it is true, are linguists sufficient to be able to converse with the various tribes all round their own, even to the distance of a hundred miles, or more. Had these travelled men still been extant, their extended tribal knowledge would have been of incalculable service to the enquirer in all matters pertaining to the multifarious dialects of the aborigines; as, however, the occupations of theso men vanished as settlement and civilisation advanced, the task to the philologist now-a-days is both wearisome and unsatisfactory.

The paucity of words which go to the formation of any one of these dialects precludes the remotest possibility of anything like a readable translation of even the commonest conversation, as the same word is frequently applied in many different ways; and it is only by the inflections, prolongations, etc., thereof that what it means to imply can be understood; therefore, unless to the initiated, a sentence