Life of Sir George Grey: Governor, High commissioner, and Premier. An Historical Biography.

The Philologist

The Philologist.

In pursuance of instructions received from the Colonial Office, Grey paid particular attention to the manners and custom of the natives and also to their language. While he resided in King George's Sound, he made a careful study of the dialect spoken by the aborigines of the South-Western district. He there compiled a brief vocabulary of it, which contains over 120 words, and he prefixed to it a synopsis of the grammar. The compiler of that small vocabulary and the author of that slight grammatical sketch had in him the makings of a philologist. His arguments for the unity of the tongues, as dialects of a single language, spoken in different parts of the country reveal a keen perception of linguistic principles. In that vocabulary, too, we may trace his discovery of the existence of ancestor-worship among the Western Australians, as shown by the use of the word, djanga, spirits of the dead. He little knew the scope of the discovery, but he dimly realised the importance of another discovery in the use of the word, kobong, meaning the vegetable or animal totem of a clan. At two important points the young explorer had driven a wedge into the deepest mysteries of Anthropology. Of the tiny volume he says that the materials for it were collated in London by his friend, Captain Gascoyne. Yet he states that the first edition of the volume, which must have been seen through the press by himself, was published at Perth, in Western Australia, in 1839. What other "collation" did it need? It was not his first essay in Philology. While tarrying at Teneriffe, on his way out to Western Australia, he is alleged, or he himself claimed, to have "collated" the vocabulary of the extinct Guanches. Had he really done as much, he would have emulated the achievement of Zeuss, in his Grammatica Celtica, at least in respect of a single language. Doubtless, all that he did was to pick up a few obviously ancient words in the language spoken by the present inhabitants of the isle.

As Grey was not the first to compile a vocabulary of the Australian language, so was he followed almost immediately by a more thorough inquirer. Mr. George Fletcher Moore, judge-advocate and afterwards judge in Western Australia, states that his own vocabulary is founded on that of Captain Grey, but is in a much enlarged form and on a more comprehensive plan. There are hundreds of new words, and the significations are more copious. While Grey's extends over only a few tiny pages, Moore's corresponding part fills 84 octavo pages. He pays a deserved tribute to Grey's small vocabulary, and says that, without it, his own might never have been undertaken. It is no small compliment to Grey that he laid the foundations of West Australian philology. The second edition of Grey's book differs from the pamphlet-form of it by containing some words peculiar to the dialect of King George's Sound.