to a district where
it was not known, the aboriginals regarding the word as pure
English. In several books statements will be found that such
and such a word is not Aboriginal, when it really has an
aboriginal source but in a different part of the Continent.
Mr. Threlkeld, in his <i>Australian Grammar</i>, which is
especially concerned with the language of the Hunter River,
gives a list of "barbarisms," words that he considers do not
belong to the aboriginal tongue. He says with perfect
truth-"Barbarisms have crept into use, introduced by sailors,
stockmen, and others, in the use of which both blacks and
whites labour under the mistaken idea, that each one is
conversing in the other's language." And yet with him a
"barbarism" has to be qualified as meaning "not belonging to
the Hunter District." But Mr. Threlkeld is not the only writer
who will not acknowledge as aboriginal sundry words with an
undoubted Australian pedigree.

(b) Maori.

The Maori language, the Italian of the South, has received very
different treatment from that meted out by fate and
indifference to the aboriginal tongues of Australia. It has
been studied by competent scholars, and its grammar has been
comprehensively arranged and stated. A Maori Dictionary,
compiled more than fifty years ago by a missionary, afterwards
a bishop, has been issued in a fourth edition by his son, who
is now a bishop. Yet, of Maori also, the same thing is said
with respect to etymology. A Maori scholar told me that, when
he began the study many years ago, he was warned by a very
distinguished scholar not to seek for derivations, as the
search was full of pitfalls. It was not maintained that words
sprang up without an origin, but that the true origin of most
of the words was now lost. In spite of this double warning, it
may be maintained that some of the origins both of Maori and of
Australian words have been found and are in this book recorded.

The pronunciation of Maori words differs so widely from that of
Australian aboriginal names that it seems advisable to insert a
note on the subject.

Australian aboriginal words have been written down on no
system, and very much at hap-hazard. English people have
attempted to express the native sounds phonetically according
to English pronunciation. No definite rule has been observed,
different persons giving totally different values to represent
the consonant and vowel sounds. In a language with a spelling