142 MATHEWS — THE GUXDUXGURRA LANGUAGE. [Oct. 4, 



W always commences a syllable or word and has its ordinary 

 consonant sound in all cases. 



At the end of a syllable or word, ty is sounded as one letter; 

 thus, in beety-bal-lee-man, it is disappearing, the syllable beety 

 can be obtained by commencing to say "beet-ye," and stopping 

 short without articulating the final e, but including the sound of 

 the y in conjunction with the t — the two letters being pronounced 

 together as one. 



Articles. 



The equivalents of the English articles, "a" and "the," do 

 not occur in this language. 



Nouns. 

 Number. — Nouns have the singular, dual and plural : 



(i) Singular .... A man Murrin 



Dual A pair of men Murrinboolallee 



Plural Several men Murrindyargang 



(2) Singular .... A kangaroo Booroo 



Dual A pair of kangaroos Booroolallee 



Plural Several kangaroos Boorooyargang 



It will be observed that the dual and plural suffixes vary slightly 

 in form, according to the termination of the noun. 



Gender. — Mur'rin, a man; bul'lan, a woman; boobal, a boy; 

 mullunga, a girl; goodha, a child of either sex; warrambal, a 

 young man. Another name for a man is boual ; a married man is 

 kunbeelang ; a married woman is boualillang. Generally the males 

 of animals are distinguished by the addition of goomban, and the 

 females by dhoorook. The males of certain animals have a name 

 which distinguishes them without stating the sex ; thus, the male of 

 wallee, the opossum, is known as jerrawul, while the female is wallee 

 dhoorook. Goola, the native bear, has burrandang for the male 

 and goola dhoorook for the female. A few animals have a distinc- 

 tive word for the female as well as for the male ; thus, the female of 

 the wallaroo is bawa, and the male goondarwa. Others again have 

 the suffix koual for the male, and noual for the female. The words 

 for " male " and "female" are inflected for number like other 

 adjectives. 



Case. — There are two forms of the nominative, the first naming 

 the subject at rest; as, Boual ngabooroman, the man sleeps. The 



