90 AN AUSTRALIAN LANGUAGE.
THE KEY:
BEING
An Analysis of the Particles used as Affixes.
��At tlic time when my " Australian Grammar " was published in Sydney, in the year 1834, circumstances did not allow me a sufficient opportunity to test the accuracy of the supposition that every soutid forms a root, and, consequently, that every character which represents those sounds becomes, likewise, a visible root, so that every letter of the alphabet of the language is in reality a root, conveying an abstract idea of certain prominent powers which are essential to it.*
My present object is, therefore, to demonstrate the correctness of this supjDOsition by explanation and illustration, and to place on record, along with the first attempt to form the aboriginal tongue into a written language, my last remarks on the speech of tribes, which, in this portion of Australia, will soon become extinct ! Death has triumphed over these aborigines ; for no rising generation remains to succeed them in their place, save that generation of whom it is written, " Grod shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem."
In attempting to show the natural structure and peculiarities of the language, I hope that the philologist may here find some assistance in his researches, as well as any others who may be endeavouring to acquire a knowledge of barbarous languages, in which there are difiiculties unsuspected, because they are not commonly found in the languages of Europe.
I cannot too strongly recommend to those who are en- deavouring to attain a knowledge of the language of savage nations, the necessity of dismissing from the mind the trammels of European schools, and simply to follow out the natural rules of languages which have not been sophisticated by art. The almost sovereign contempt with which the aboriginal language of New South Wales has been treated in this colony, and the indifference shown toward the attempts to gain information on the subject, are not highly indicative of the love of science in this part of the globe; for this it is difficult to account, except on the ground of that universal engagement in so many various employments incidental to a new colony, w^here every individual must be dependent on his own exertions for the necessaries and the comforts of life.
- I hope that, in reprinting " The Key," I shall not be held as supporting
this theory. — Ed.
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