Page:An Australian language as spoken by the Awabakal.djvu/94

 5 AN AIJSTRALTAN LANGUAGE.

Some dialects say kedlu, for which the usual form would be k ellu. But it is possible that the d here is radical, and so maintains its j^lace.

In the Dieycrie tribe, near Cooper's Creek, South Australia, many words have in them the peculiar sound ndr, as raun dru, ' two,' which 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 n to d, so that dua is pronounced ndua. The sound of ndr comes by accretions from a single r, 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 the twonga of the inland tribes is pronounced twonk, and katta is kat.

Summary.

The consonants, then, may be thus arranged : —

Gutturals — k kh g gh g h.

PalataU — 6 ... j ... ... y.

Cerebrals — ? ... ... ... ... r.

Dentals-— t th d dh n 1.

Labials — p ph b bh m

Liquids — n 1.

The vowels are Jive in number. If we reckon the guttural- nasal^ as a separate sound (which, considering its place in the language, we may justly do), but omit the nasalised k as un- common, and count n and I as dentals only, the simple conso- nant sounds ai*e fifteen in number. To these add the two sounds of f/«, and lo and y as consonants ; but omit the six aspirated consonants, for they are not simple sounds. The Australian alphabet thus consists of twentij-fouY simple ele- mentary sounds. — Ed.]

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