I907J 



MATHEWS— LANGUAGE OF THE BH^DHAWAL TRIBE. 347 



Among the Kurnai, bra means mankind, but kurnai or kunnai 

 distinguishes one of their own men. In the Birdhawal, mawp 

 means mankind, whilst gidyang signifies a man of their own tribe. 

 Detachments of the Birdhawal community who inhabited the densely 

 timbered tracts, were called waggarak. The Birdhawal call their 

 own dialect muk-dhang, but they distinguish the dialect of the 

 Kurnai as gunggala-dhang. The termination dhang in both in- 

 stances means " mouth," and is symbolical of speech. It may also 

 be mentioned that the Kurnai call their own local dialect milk- 

 dhang, and that of the Birdhawal kzvai-dhang. Muk means good 

 or great, and kzcai signifies rough ; I forget the meaning of 

 gunggala. 



If we take the whole of that portion of the State of Victoria 

 lying to the east of the 146th meridian of longitude, and situated 

 between the sea coast and the great dividing range or Australian 

 Alps, we find that the language of the native tribes has the same 

 grammatical structure. This region of Victoria is commonly known 

 as Gippsland, and the language prevailing over the whole area is 

 the Birdhawal, or dialects of the Birdhawal. A glance at a map 

 of Victoria will show that this tract of country embraces the entire 

 sea coast from Cape Howe westerly to Waratah Bay, and extends 

 thence northerly to the great dividing range. 



The social organization of the Birdhaw^al is substantially the same 

 as that of the Woiwurru, Bunwurru, Thagungwurru and other 

 tribes, which has been described by me elsewhere.^ The social 

 structure of the Birdhawal is also analogous to that of the Thur- 

 rawal and kindred tribes situated to the northeast of them in New 

 South Wales, with which I have already dealt in several publications. 



Orthography. 



The system of orthoepy adopted is that recommended by the 

 Royal Geographical Society, London, but a few additional rules of 

 spelling have been introduced by me, to meet the requirements of 

 the Australian pronunciation. 



Eighteen letters of the English alphabet are sounded, comprising 



^Jotirn. Roy. Soc. N. S. Wales, XXXVIIL, pp. 297-304. 



