PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION F. 437 



The greater probability is that the Kamilroi speech once prevailed 

 in the north, and that certain words in it were displaced by others, 

 one cause being the pressure of fresh migrations from the north. 

 It is characteristic of a number of the class-names in Queensland 

 and the north of New South Wales, and of tAvo (and, perhaps, 

 three) phratry names, that their meaning, lost in the north, has 

 been preserved far to the south. 



So far as I could learn, the habits and customs of the Gurang 

 did not differ from those of their southern neighbours. 



Language. 



The Gurang dialect is closely related by vocabulary to the 

 Wakka and Kabi dialects, as much, or more, to the latter as to the 

 former, although the Wakka country was intermediate. It has 

 preserved more primitive forms of many words. Take, for 

 example, the Gurang word mil, eye, of which the Wakka and 

 Kabi analogues are ma and mi respectively. Many words relate 

 Gurang to Kamilroi of New South Wales. The Gurang vocabulary 

 suggests that the dialect has been largely constituted by a fusion 

 of the east coast type of dialect with the type that prevailed in 

 New South Wales, on the western slopes of the Main Dividing 

 Hange. The Gurang is most closely related to those dialects in 

 Queensland and New South Wales that use the term dhan for 

 man; this includes the Euahlayi. As has been noticed already, 

 the phratry names are the same as those of the Kamilroi, allowing 

 for difference of pronunciation and change through phonetic decay. 



The personal pronoun, especially in the nominative case of the 

 first and second persons singular and the first person plural, has 

 the features of the common Australian type, as exemplified in the 

 dialects of Saibai and Kowrarega Islands in Torres Strait, that of 

 Bloomfield Valley in the north of Queensland, and those of the 

 Wakka and Kabi immediately to the south of the Gurang. 



A paradigm of the personal pronoun is given in the vocabulary. 



The interrogative abverbs are formed by additions to the stems 

 min- and wen-, as is the case in most dialects, with, however, 

 another stem in yukuri- in the terms for How is it ? and Why ? 

 For examples, see vocabulary. In the verb, the commonest 

 infinitive termination is -gim or -igim. There is a longer form 

 in -iligim, reminding one of the Awakabal dialect of Lake 

 Macquarie, New South Wales. The numerals are nula, one; 

 bulla, two; warbar or bulla nula, three. Higher numbers are 

 expressed by warbar. This term occurs as the numeral for one 

 from the Peak Downs, northward along the coast, with variants in 

 Torres Strait and at Saibai Island, on the coast of New, Guinea,. 

 as I have formerly pointed out.* yfT"^ ' s) j^ f~ 



• Eaglehawk and Crow, p. 169. 





