. Natives of Australia. s are sometimes liable to change veryrapidly. There is a story as to certain runawayshaving left a tribe and established themselves in anunoccupied area; after thirty years, they or theirchildren spoke a language almost unintelligible to theoriginal tribe. This may have been due in part to thepresence of captured women in their midst, whom theytook from other tribes ; but in view of the linguisticaccomplishments of the Australian, it is certainly sur-prising that the change was so great as it seems tohave been. On the other hand, Cooks EndeavourRiver tribe seems to have
. Natives of Australia. s are sometimes liable to change veryrapidly. There is a story as to certain runawayshaving left a tribe and established themselves in anunoccupied area; after thirty years, they or theirchildren spoke a language almost unintelligible to theoriginal tribe. This may have been due in part to thepresence of captured women in their midst, whom theytook from other tribes ; but in view of the linguisticaccomplishments of the Australian, it is certainly sur-prising that the change was so great as it seems tohave been. On the other hand, Cooks EndeavourRiver tribe seems to have the same vocabulary as130 years ago. Another cause, which, however,operates mainly where the group is of some size—the numbers seem to range from 20 to 200—is thecustom of changing the names of certain objectsbecause the word which designated them was identicalor formed part of the name of a dead man. To men-tion the name of the dead would be, according tosavage belief both in Australia and many other parts Plate 6. ^ <z LANGUAGE 29 of the world, to summon his ghost ; accordingly hisname is not mentioned, and the word drops out of use,sometimes for a period of years, sometimes for ever,unless chance should bring it into currency again. In the matter of a knowledge of languages theAustralian can give points to most of us. It is truethat he has the advantage of having the foreignlanguage at his very door; but even that does notseem to help English people to learn Welsh. It isperhaps a material help that the grammatical struc-ture tends to be identical; still it is no smallthing for a man to speak two other languages withease and understand a fair number more, as was thecase in the north of New South Wales, It is saidthat from two to three weeks suffices for the learningof a new language; and this agrees with what weknow of the extraordinary aptitude of Australians,especially in youth, for the acquisition of of the early voyagers has left on record that aWest
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