Father Anjello's very brief grammatical sketch of the Limbakarajia language of Port Essington* exhibits, as far as it goes, precisely the same principles as Mr. Macgillivray's Kowrarega; indeed, some of the details coincide.
(*Footnote. Given to Mr. Macgillivray by Mr. James Macarthur, and prefixed to the manuscript Port Essington Vocabulary, alluded to in Volume 1.)
Thus, the Limbakarajia personal pronouns are:
I = nga-pi.
We = ngari.
Thou = noie.
We two = arguri.
He, she, it = gianat.
Ye = noie.
They = ngalmo.
Here the pi in nga-pi is the po in the Aiawong nga-ppo; the gian in gian-at being, probably, the in in the Kowrarega ina = that, this. Ngalmo, also, is expressly stated to mean many as well as they, a fact which confirms the view taken of tana.
As for the tenses of the verbs, they are evidently no true tenses at all, but merely combinations of the verbal root, and an adverb of time. In Limbakarajia, however, the adverbial element precedes the verbal one. In Kowrarega, however, the equivalent to this adverbial element (probably a simple adverb modified in form so as to amalgamate with its verb, and take the appearance of an inflexion) follows it--a difference of order, sequence, or position, upon which some philologists will, perhaps, lay considerable stress. On the contrary, however, languages exceedingly similar in other respects, may differ in the order of the parts of a term; e.g. the German dialects, throughout, place the article before the noun, and keep it separate: whereas the Scandinavian tongues not only make it follow, but incorporate it with the substantive with which it agrees. Hence, a term which, if modelled on the German fashion, should be hin sol, becomes, in Scandinavian, solen = the sun. And this is but one instance out of many. Finally, I may add that the prefix apa, in the present tense of the verb = cut, is, perhaps, the same affix eipa in the present tense of the Kowrarega verbs.
Another point connected with the comparative philology of Australia is the peculiarity of its phonetic system. The sounds of f and s are frequently wanting. Hence, the presence of either of them in one dialect has been considered as evidence of a wide ethnological difference. Upon this point--in the case of s--the remarks on the sound systems of the Kowrarega and Gudang are important. The statement is, the s of the one dialect becomes ty or tsh (and ch) in the other. Thus the English word breast = susu, Kowrarega; tyu-tyu, Gudang, and the English outrigger float = sarima, Kowrarega; charima, Gudang, which of these two forms is the older? Probably the Gudang, or the form in ty. If so, the series of changes is remarkable, and by attending to it we may see how sounds previously non-existent may become evolved.
Thus--let the original form for breast be tutu. The first change which takes place is the insertion of the sound of y, making tyu-tyu; upon the same principle which makes certain Englishmen say gyarden, kyind, and skyey, for garden, kind, and sky. The next change is for ty to become tsh. This we find also in English, where picture or pictyoor is pronounced pictshur, etc. This being the change exhibited in the Gudang form tyutyu (pr. choochoo, or nearly so) we have a remarkable phonetic phenomenon, namely the existence of a compound sound (tsh) wherein s is an element, in a language where s, otherwise than as the element of a compound, is wanting. In other words, we have a sound formed out of s, but not s itself; or (changing the expression still further) we have s in certain combinations, but not uncombined. Let, however, the change proceed, and the initial sound of t be lost. In this case tsh becomes sh. A further change reduces sh to s.
When all this has taken place--and there are many languages wherein the whole process is exhibited--the sound of a hitherto unknown articulation becomes evolved or developed by a natural process of growth, and that in a language where it was previously wanting. The phenomenon, then, of the evolution of new simple sounds should caution us against over-valuing phonetic differences. So should such facts as that of the closely allied dialects of the Gudang and Kowrarega differing from each other by the absence or presence of so important a sound as that of s.
The comparative absence, however, of the sound of s, in Australian, may be further refined on in another way; and it may be urged that it is absent, not because it has never been developed, or called into existence, but because it has ceased to exist. In the Latin of the Augustan age as compared with that of the early Republic, we find the s of words like arbos changed into r (arbor). The old High German, also, and the Icelandic, as compared with the Meso-Gothic, does the same. Still the change only affects certain inflectional sy1lables, so that the original s being only partially displaced, retains its place in the language, although it occurs in fewer words. In Australian, where it is wanting at all, it is wanting in toto: and this is a reason for believing that its absence is referrible to non-development rather than to displacement. For reasons too lengthy to exhibit, I believe that this latter view is NOT applicable to Australian; the s, when wanting, being undeveloped. In either case, however, the phonetic differences between particular dialects are the measures of but slight differences.