Page:The Present State and Prospects of the Port Phillip District of New South Wales.djvu/158

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

146

PRESENT STATE AND PROSPECTS

cal force as to make it in the last degree improbable that these could have been the discovery of more than one savage tribe, while the total dissimilarity^[1] in language between the natives of the several districts renders equally unlikely the supposition that these discoveries have been transmitted from one to another. This diversity of language it is which is so anomalous a feature in the case; for, while all the other circumstances which I have enumerated, clearly indicate a common origin,^[2] this alone seems to point in a different

↑ Captain Grey, the present governor of South Australia, in his narrative of an expedition to North-western Australia, maintains that the languages of the different parts of Australia, if not identical, are mere variations in dialect. This position he supports by reasoning such as the following: Gabby, kuypee, kowin, and kauwee are, it seems, words signifying water in different dialects. Of this Captain Grey says—"But in fact this variation does not constitute any essential difference; for, considering the interchangeable nature of the consonants b, p, and w and of g and k, which affect different dialects, we shall find the words gabby, kuypee, kowin, and kauwee to be only different forms of the same root."—Grey's Narrative.

Possibly by a similar process mobit, pareet, wonyeram, katyin, karteen, and pam, Port Phillip terms signifying water, may be proved identical with each other, and with gabby, kuypee, kowin, and kauwee. This reminds me of a passage in Goldsmith's "Citizen of the World," where he shows with what ease difficulties of this kind are got over when they stand in the way of a favourite theory. "Thus," says he, "it is proved that the Emperor Ki is certainly the same with King Atoes; for it we only change k into a, and I into toes, we shall have the name Atoes; and with equal ease Menes may be proved to be the same with the Emperor Tu."—Citizen of the World.
↑ It is a curious circumstance, when considered in connexion with this subject, that the aborigines of Van Dieman's Land are clearly a distinct race, having woolly hair, while those of New

[1] Captain Grey, the present governor of South Australia, in his narrative of an expedition to North-western Australia, maintains that the languages of the different parts of Australia, if not identical, are mere variations in dialect. This position he supports by reasoning such as the following: Gabby, kuypee, kowin, and kauwee are, it seems, words signifying water in different dialects. Of this Captain Grey says—"But in fact this variation does not constitute any essential difference; for, considering the interchangeable nature of the consonants b, p, and w and of g and k, which affect different dialects, we shall find the words gabby, kuypee, kowin, and kauwee to be only different forms of the same root."—Grey's Narrative.

Possibly by a similar process mobit, pareet, wonyeram, katyin, karteen, and pam, Port Phillip terms signifying water, may be proved identical with each other, and with gabby, kuypee, kowin, and kauwee. This reminds me of a passage in Goldsmith's "Citizen of the World," where he shows with what ease difficulties of this kind are got over when they stand in the way of a favourite theory. "Thus," says he, "it is proved that the Emperor Ki is certainly the same with King Atoes; for it we only change k into a, and I into toes, we shall have the name Atoes; and with equal ease Menes may be proved to be the same with the Emperor Tu."—Citizen of the World.

[p146-2] It is a curious circumstance, when considered in connexion with this subject, that the aborigines of Van Dieman's Land are clearly a distinct race, having woolly hair, while those of New

[1]

[2]