“If, then, we start from Perth, in Western Australia, following the coast in a southerly direction, it will be found that between Perth and King George's Sound a common language is spoken, made up of several dialects, scarcely differing from one another in any material points, and gradually merging into the dialects of these two places, as the two points considered are nearer to one or the other.
“The word for the Sun at Perth is Nganga, whilst at Adelaide it is Tin-dee; but the word used by the natives at Encounter Bay, South Australia, thirty-six miles from Adelaide, is Ngon-ge, and the word used in the southern districts of Western Australia for the Stars is Tiendee; [pg 093] thus, by extending the vocabularies of the two places, the identity of the language is shown.”[86]
The reader who by a perusal of the previous Sections has learned how rapid are the changes which languages undergo, will not merely conclude, with Colonel Grey, that the population of Australia must be descendants of one Sept, but he will conclude also that the first colonization of that continent must be referred to a comparatively recent date. Australia is nearly as large as the Continent of Europe, and yet we find one language prevail over the whole of its extensive surface! It may be inferred with certainty, from the changes which one thousand years have produced in the European languages, that this fact makes it probable that the date of the origin of the Australian tribes must have been comparatively recent,—makes it impossible that it can have been remote!
In relation more immediately to the conclusions developed in this Section, it remains to be noticed that the trifling incipient differences of dialect in the language of Australia, as described by Colonel Grey, afford a vivid picture of the first phases of that process which, during the course of a series of ages, has given rise to the different languages of the four great Continents of Asia, Europe, Africa, and America!
But how are we to account for the origin of these numerous synonymous terms which abound in all, especially in ancient, languages?
This subject will be discussed in the next Chapter.