| English. | Adelaide River, North Australia. | Victoria. |
| Father | Pep-pee | Pepie (Camperdown). |
| Hand | Man-enee | Manya (Balmoral). |
| Eye (or see) | Ma | Ma (Upper Loddon). |
| Teeth | Ya | Layha (Hamilton). |
| English. | King George's Sound, Western Australia. | Victoria. |
| Hand | Marhra | Murrah (Tangambalanga). |
| Eye | Kaubigur Mel | Mill (Barnawartha). |
| Tongue | Dtakundyl | Tulling (Barnawartha). |
| Teeth | Nalgo | Lia (Lake Hindmarsh). |
| Foot | Jinna | Jinna (Horsham). |
| Blood | Barree | Burrabee (Barnawartha). |
| English. | Swan River, Western Australia. | Victoria. |
| Sun | Ngangga | Yongya (Echuca). |
| Moon | Mega, Miki | Meatian (Tyntyndyer). |
| Ground (or land) | Budjor | Jaa (Upper Loddon). |
| Father | Mamman | Marman (Melbourne). |
| Hand | Marhra | Murrah (Tangambalanga). |
| Eye | Mel | Mill (Barnawartha). |
| Tongue | Dtallang | Tallang (Western Port). |
| Foot | Jinna | Jinna (Horsham). |
| Hair | Kattamangara | Yar-ra (Western Port). |
The word for "Head" at Popham Bay, North Australia, is Koala (Koolie, Gunbower, Victoria); "Opossum" at Wellington Valley and at Regent's Lake, Lachlan, is Willee (Wille, Lake Hindmarsh); "Fire," at Karaula, in lat. 29° S., is Wè (Wee, Wimmera district); and "Crow," at Byrne's Creek, near the Lachlan, is Waagan (Wangan, Barnawartha).
A number of similar coincidences might be given, and it is not far wrong to say that, in the dialects of Victoria, the words for Head, Hair, Tongue, Teeth, Eye, Hand, Foot, Blood, Bone, Night, Snake, Crow, and Sun coincide; and that throughout Australia the words for Eye, Tongue, Hand, Teeth, Blood, Sun, and Moon are the same, or nearly the same. There are exceptions, it is true; but these are explained by the habits of the natives and the probability of errors having crept into the vocabularies.[1]
- ↑ Mr. John Macgillivray, in the narrative of the Voyage of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, refers to the "difficulty of framing so apparently simple a document as a vocabulary, and particularly to show how one must not fall into the too common mistake of putting down as certain every word he gets from a savage, however clearly he may suppose he is understood." He adds that he got at different times and from different individuals for the "shin-bone" words which, in the course of time, he found to mean respectively the "leg," the "shin-bone," and "bone" in general.
Though great care has been bestowed on the vocabularies in this work, it would be unreasonable to suppose that, in all cases, the exact equivalents of the English words have been taken down, or that the lists are free from errors.
