ame signification, to be
traced, in many instances, round the entire continent, but undergoing, of
course, in so vast an extent of country, various modifications;

3. The same names of natives occurring frequently at totally opposite
portions of the continent. Now, in all parts of it which are known to
Europeans, it is ascertained that the natives name their children from
any remarkable circumstance which may occur soon after their birth; such
being the case, an accordance of the names of natives is a proof of a
similarity of dialect.

CAUSES OF ERROR IN ENQUIRERS.

The chief cause of the misapprehension which has so long existed with
regard to the point under consideration is that the language of the
aborigines of Australia abounds in synonymes, many of which are, for a
time, altogether local; so that, for instance, the inhabitants of a
particular district will use one word for water, whilst those of a
neighbouring district will apply another, which appears to be a totally
different one. But when I found out that in such instances as these both
tribes understood the words which either made use of, and merely employed
another one, from temporary fashion and caprice, I felt convinced that
the language generally spoken to Europeans by the natives of any one
small district could not be considered as a fair specimen of the general
language of that part of Australia, and therefore in the vocabulary which
I compiled in Western Australia I introduced words collected from a very
extensive tract of country.

Again, in getting the names of the parts of the body, etc., from the
natives, many causes of error arise; for they have names for almost every
minute portion of the human frame: thus, in asking the name for the arm,
one stranger would get the name for the upper arm, another for the lower
arm, another for the right arm, another for the left arm, etc.; and it
therefore seems most probable that in the earlier stages of the inquiry
into the nature of the language of this people these circumstances
contributed mainly to the erroneous conclusion that languages radically
different were spoken in remote parts of the continent.

PROOFS OF IDENTITY OF THE LANGUAGE THROUGHOUT THE CONTINENT.

One singularity in the dialects spoken by the aborigines in different
portions of Australia is that those of districts widely removed from one
another sometimes assimilate very closely, whilst the dialects spoken in
the intermediate ones diff