The other Australian base-form of the first pronoun is ba, and this, in the forms of ma, me, mi, mo, is so common in all languages that I need scarcely quote more than Sanskrit mad (the base), 'I'; the Græco-Latin emou, mou; mihi, me; and the English, ' we.' This base, ba, gives us the Awabakal simple nomi- native bág͏̇ (for ba-ag͏̇), -ag͏̇ being one of the most common of Australian formatives. Then, of the possessive form, emmo-úg͏̇, which I would write emo-ug͏̇, I take the e to be merely enunciative, the -úg͏̇ being a possessive formation; the mo that remains is the same as in the Australian mo-to, wo-kok, 'I,' the Papuan, mōu, 'I.' The Awaliakal ba-li, 'we two '(both being present), is ba + li, where the -li is probably a dual form.
The Awabakal accusative of the first pronoun is tia, or, as I would write it, tya or ća; cf. guća and úncá. This tia appears again in the vocative ka-tio-u, and is, I think, only a phonetic form of the ta which I have already examined.
I think, also, that the Hebrew pronoun an-oki, ' I,' is connected with our root ak, at, ta; for it seems to be pretty well assured that the an- there is merely a demonstrative particle placed before the real root-form -ok-i; for the Egyptian pronouns of the first and second persons have it (-an, -ant, -ent) also. And this quite corresponds with our Awabakal pronouns of the first and second })ersons, ga-toa and gin-toa; for, in my view, they both begin with a demonstrative ga, which exists also in Polynesian as a prothetic nga, nge.[1] In Awabakal, I see it in g͏̇a-li, 'this,' g͏̇a-la, 'that,' and in the interrogative g͏̇an, 'who'? for interrogatives come from a demonstrative or indefinite base (cf. the word minyug͏̇ on page 3 of the Appendix). Here again, in the Awabakal word gan, 'who' ? we are brought into contact with Aryan equivalents; for, if gan is for ka-an, as seems likely, then it leads us to the Sanskrit ka-s, 'who'? Zend, cvañt = Latin quan-tus? Latin, quod, ubi, &c, Gothic, hvan = English, 'when'? Lithuanian, kà-s, 'who'? Irish, can, 'whence'? Kymric, pa, 'who'? Greek, pōs, ' how '? po-then, ' whence '?
In the Australian plural forms g͏̇éanni, g͏̇éen, we have again the prefix demonstrative g͏̇a, but now softened into g͏̇e (cf. the Maori prefix nge) because of the short vowel that follows. The next syllable, an, is a liquid form of ad, ta, 'I,' and the ni may be a pluralising addition — the same as in the Papuan ni-mo. It should here be remembered, howevei-, that the Australian languages seldom have special forms for the plural; for ta may mean either 'I' or 'we'; to indicate the plural number some pluralising word must be added to ta; thus in Western Australia ' we' is gala-ta, literally 'all-I.' Some pronouns, however, seem to have absorbed these suffix
- ↑ In Maori, this nge is used as a prefix to the pronouns au and ona; thus, nge-au is exactly equivalent to the Australian ngatoa.
