Lang, Rev. J.D. Papers, Vol. 9, Personal and Miscellaneous, 1838-73. A2229, CY Reel 900, pp. 2-9 Mitchell Library, Sydney, no date (c 1840). --------------- From K. Smith. Original MS transcription checked by Jeremy Steele Monday 22 September 2003 ------------------------- This is a manuscript in ink, with a broad, bold, rounded hand. contrasting with the ’Lange: Argyle’ MS, which is a thin, right-sloping hand, Heading: ‘Vocabulary of the language of the Aborigines [?] of N.S.Wales + before a word denotes its being uncertain’ There are eleven pages. The list is arranged in lines, numbered in groups of five. There are three columns: Aboriginal / Chinese / English. The middle column has fewer and fewer entries to page 6 (line 177), where they cease. On p.1 there are two marginal references to ’Malay’. A number of the Aboriginal entries are annotated ‘(in the interior)’ or ‘(on the coast)’ Page 10 (the last ’list’ page, concludes with the linguistic observation: ‘It does not appear that the aborigines of Terra Australia make use of connecting particles such as preopositions & conjunctions. Their language is in too rude a state for such refinement. They do not seem to have even a substantive verb.’ Page 11, much abbreviated and hard to read, makes comparisons with other languages. Coincid.(ence) bet.(ween) Chin.(ese) & Polynes.(ian) 1. Monosyll.(abic) or radic. [?] words [?] monosyll.(able) [?] 2. Form comp.[lete?] words in same man.(ner?) --- --- --- in Tah.(itian?) sig.(nifies?) par.(entr?) masc.(uline) or fem.(inine). Midnatine {??} being a fath.(er) & M.valiene [??] a moth.(er?). Orang in Malay sign.(ifies) man in Tah.(itian) abbrev.(iated) into Ora, it ent.(??) --- comp. Ora Stedua (?) Many (?) parent, or Teacher Ch.(inese?) Sao Hand (?) Sao Tchu (?) fing.(er) Sao Tchu ---- AND THREE OTHER POINTS IN SIMILAR VEIN. [These notes by JS 30 dec. 2004] WILD IDEA; Horatio Hale would have been capable of making the linguistic remarks"but why confined to Chinese, Malay? JS 26 Jan. 05 ---------------------- ’... a further manuscript of ‘Sydney’ language, never published, exists in the Mitchell Library amongst the papers of Dr. John Dunmore Lang. This, however, is the Dharruk dialect proper to Sydney’ Capell, Arthur ’Aboriginal Languages in the South Central Coast’, Oceania, Vol 41, No 1, 1970; p 20-27. ---------------- JS LIST LOCATION: Aboriginal Word Lists A-L ringbinder.