n - University of Newcastle

8 AN AUSTRALIAN L~GVAOE. THE GBIJIJIIR.
Some dialects say lie dl u, for which the usual form would
be k e 11 u. But it is possible that the d here is radical, and so
maintains its - place.
In the Dieyerie tribe, near Cooper's Creek, South Australia,
many words have in them the peculiar sound ncfr, as m un dru,
' two,' ~~hich is also the Tamil word for 'three.' The Tamil is
fond of this sound, and so is the language of Madagascar ; the
Fijian prefixes the sound of 12 to d, so that dua is pronounced
ndua. The sound of nclr comes by accretions from a single I-,
and so the simpler forms of the Tamil mundru are muru,
mudu.
The dialect of King George's Sound, Western Australia, has
this peculiarity, that it delights in closed syllables; for there tho
t moc ga of the inland tribes is pronounced t w onli, and Ira t ta
is kat.
The consonants, then, may be thus arranged :-
Gz~tizcrnls- k kh g gh g 11.
Palatals- 6 ... j ... ... 9-
Cerebrals- ? ... ... ... ... 1'.
Bentals- t th d dh n 1.
Labirrls- p ph b bh m ...
Liyz~ids- ... ... ... ... n 1.
-
The vowels are jive in number. If we reckon the gutturalnasal
g as a separate sound (~vhicll, cousidering its place in the
language, we may justly do), but omit the nasalised I% as uncommon,
and count 12 and I as dentals only, the simple consoiiant
sou~lds are Jfteen in number. To these add the two
sounds of tlz, and w and g as consonants; but omit the six
aspirated consouants, for they are not simple sounds. The
Auetralian alphabet thus consists of twenty-four simple elementary
sounds.-ED.]
THE PARTS OF SPEECI-I.
The general meanin.?; of a noun is expressed by using its
simple form; as, m a lr o :_o, ' a fish ' or ' fishes ' ; t i b b in, a ' bird '
or ' birds,' in a general sense ; k i~ 1 a i, ' mood,' or 'a stick.' To
make these plural, the plural pronoun rould be attached; as,
u n n i m a k o r o, t a r a m a k o r o, ' this fish,' ' these fishes,'
meaning that they are here present; to express ' the fish' as an
active agent me must eny gali n1 ako r o, 'this fish,' sc., did some
action. And so also with respect to all nouns, as wiil be expkzined
under the head of pronouns.
Kouns are the ' names of persons, things, actions, and places.'
They are Proper, when ueed as the name of any individual person
or thing ; Common and Collective, -hen denoting the nanles of
things singly or together; as, k fir i, 'man' or 'mankind'; && r a i,
' kangaroo ' ; m2lx-o r o, ' fish?^ pronoun attached shows the
number, whether singular or plural. Nouns mh~ch describe particular
applications of the meaning of the verb are formed fro111
the roots of their verbs ; s.y., m i, the root of the verb 'speali,' gives
wiyellikh~~, 'one who spealrs,' 'a speaker'; wiyaiyb, 'one
who always talks,' 'a talker,' 'chatte~er.' When names of things
are appropriated to n person so as to be the person's name, that
name must be declined in the first declensiol~ of nouns, to show
it is the name of a person and not of the thing ; e.g., $jn t i g
' a crab,' belougs to the tliird declension, and the gen~tive would
be ti n ti g - w 4 , ' belonging to a crab'; but when it is i he
name of a person, its gellitire would be t i n t i g - i1,mmbha, ' belosgia
to Crab,'-Mr. or Mrs., according to the contest. There
are a few terminntioris of gender in certain nouns, but nut
generally; as, pori-bai, 'a husband'; porikun-bai, 'a wife';
yinsl, 'a son'; yinhlkkn, 'a daughter'; but piriwal,
means a 'king' or 'queen,' at:cording to the gender of the pronoun
attached. To animals, in most instances, there are different