Aborigines of Van Diemen's Land, 1830-1840 - Page 94
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conciliatory mission into the interior and had always some of the Native Blacks with them.- It is certainly somewhat singular that the Eastern, Western, and Southern Native Blacks should speak three languages so very dissimilar. Several Sydney Natives were engaged with Mr Robinson, Mr Batman, and other leaders, but could throw no light on the subject of languages, for they spoke one which could not be understood by the blacks of Van Dieman's Land.
It is not improbable that some of the above vocabulary may have been published elsewhere, for I strongly suspect that whatever may have been obtained is nearly derived through the same channels.
IIt may be reasonably supposed that where any nation is unacquainted with most of the necessaries of life, with the arts and sciences and crippled in their Ideas, the language must also be confined. Hence in the course of communications with civilized people, many new words are adopted, which although corrupted are easily traced to their original source. for instance Bullocks are called Buckelow in the western language. [Lucoopuy?] Picka-niny signifies a small boat, but the word Picka-ni-ny that has been introduced