Page:An Australian language as spoken by the Awabakal.djvu/90

 AN ArSTRALTAN LANGrAGE.

��Vowels.

��The essential vowels are a, t, u, all pronounced with a full and open voice; a as in the English word 'father' ; i as in 'seen' ; and It as 00 in ' moon.' The Australian a long is, in fact, a guttural sound, and is so deceptive to the ear that in many vocabularies the syllable ba is written bah, or even bar ; this a has a sti'ong sympathy for the letter r, which is nearly a guttural in Australia, and when the two come together, as in mar, the sound of both is deepened, and so ma>' is pronounced something like mah-rr. This guttural combination of a and r has hitherto been repre- sented by arr, as in the word bundarra ; but, as both the sounds are normal, I prefer to write bundara, especially as the accent in such a w^ord always falls on the penult. Our blacks also are Orientals in this respect, that, while in English there is a ten- dency to hurry over the open vowels in a word, they dwell on them, and say bd-bd, where we say pa-pa, or even pa-pa.

The Australian i is ee long ; sometimes the sound of it is pro- longed, and then resembles the sound of e in ' scene ' ; this sound of i is represented by i in this volume.

In Australian names and words, the sound of it long is com- monly indicated by oo. This is quite unnecessary ; for the sound of u, as it is in 'pull,' is its natural sound. I will, therefore, make it a rule that tt, before a single consonant, stands for that sound.

There are two more long vowels, e and d ; these come from a combination and modification of the sounds of a, i, and u ; e comes from the union of a and i, as in the English ' sail ' ; o from a and u, as in the French ' faute,' or perhaps from a direct. AVherever necessary, an accent has been placed on e and o (thus, e, 6), to show that they are the long vowels.

Besides these, there are the short vowels, a, e, t, 6, il. As a matter of convenience, it has been usual to indicate the short sound of these vowels, wherever they occur in Australian words, by doubling the consonant which follows them ; thus also, in English, we have ' manner,' and, in French, ' bonne,' ' mienne.' This plan seems unobjectionable, and has been followed here ; such a word, then, as bukka will have the short sound of w; and such words as bundara, where the u is followed by a hardened consonant, or by two different C(msonants, will have the w short, unless marked otherwise. If any one of those vowels which are usually short be followed by a simjle consonant, the vowel may then be pronounced long ; as iUa, tla ; but the short sound of n, in such a position, will be marked by u in this volume. In the declension of the verbs, our author writes -mulla, -kulli, and the like ; this spelling I have allowed to stand, although I think that it should have been -malla, -kalli.

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