Journals of Expeditions of Discovery into Central Australia and Overland from Adelaide to King George's Sound in the Years 1840-1: Sent By the Colonists of South Australia, with the Sanction and Support of the Government: Including an Account of the Manners and Customs of the Aborigines and the State of Their Relations with Europeans — Volume 02Eyre, Edward John
History
Journals of Expeditions of Discovery into Central Australia and Overland from Adelaide to King George's Sound in the Years 1840-1: Sent By the Colonists of South Australia, with the Sanction and Support of the Government: Including an Account of the Manners and Customs of the Aborigines and the State of Their Relations with Europeans — Volume 02
Eyre, Edward John
Australia -- Discovery and exploration; Ethnology -- Australia
The dialects I allude to, are first that of the Murray river, called the
"Aiawong" and which is spoken with slight variations from the Lake
Alexandrina, up to the Darling. Secondly, the "Boraipar," or language of
the natives to the east of the Murray, and which appears in its
variations to branch into that of the south-eastern tribes; and thirdly,
the "Yak-kumban," or dialect spoken by the natives, inhabiting the
country to the north-west and north of the Murray, and which extends
along the range of hills from Mount Bryant to the Darling near Laidley's
Ponds, and forms in its variations the language of the Darling itself;
these tribes meet upon the Murray at Moorunde, and can only communicate
to each other by the intervention of the Aiawong dialect, which the
north-western or south-eastern tribes are compelled to learn, before they
can either communicate with each other, or with the natives of the
Murray, at their common point of rendezvous.
To the tables already given, it is thought desirable to add two of the
dialects, spoken in the country to the eastward of South Australia, and
which were published for the House of Commons, with other papers on the
Aborigines, in August 1844.
[Note: At this point in the book two table appear, with the following
headings. These tables have not been reproduces in this eBook.]
A SPECIMEN OF THE DIFFERENCE OF DIALECTS SPOKEN BY THE NATIVE TRIBES OF
PORT PHILLIP.
SPECIMEN OF FIVE DIALECTS SPOKEN BY THE ABORIGINES OF THE NORTH-WESTERN
DISTRICT.
Captain Flinders observed the same difference to exist in various parts
of New Holland, which he visited, and yet that judicious navigator
inclined to the opinion that all the various tribes had originally one
common origin. Vol. ii. p. 213-14, he says,
"I do not know that the language of any two parts of Terra Australis,
however near, has been found to be entirely the same; for even at Botany
Bay, Port Jackson, and Broken Bay, not only the dialect, but many words
are radically different; and this confirms one part of an observation,
the truth of which seems to be generally admitted, that although
similarity of language in two nations proves their origin to be the same,
yet dissimilarity of languages is no proof of the contrary position.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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