AUSTRALIA. 493 



PRIMITIVE SOUNDS. VARIATIONS. 



n 



V 



P b 



r 



t d 



To these should perhnps be added two more sounds, the one somewhat resembling the 

 French ^, but slightly nasalised. When lengthened, it hns nearly the sound of a short 

 a, followed closely by a short i, and may, indeed, be only a rapid pronunciation of this 

 diphthong. Mr. Watson has written it d. The other articulation is an r, not trilled, but 

 pronounced likewise with a nasal intonation. Mr. Watson distinguishes it sometimes by 

 an h preceding it ; but in other instances it is left unmarked, and it seems doubtful, on 

 the whole, whether it is not to be regarded as a mere variation of the usual trilled or 

 rolling /'. 



Leaving these out of the question, it will be seen that the number of elements is but 

 eleven, and that among them are no sibilants, aspirates, or gutturals. The general cha- 

 racter of the pronunciation is dental and nasal ; the sounds are formed principally in the 

 fore part of the mouth, and the intonations are varied and pleasing. The accent, in words 

 of two syllables, is usually on the first, and in words of three or more on the antepenulti- 

 mate ; but to this there are many exceptions. Words and syllables always end in a 

 vowel, or in one of the consonants, I, m, n, 5, and r. 



The most striking peculiarity in the alphabet is the paucity of vowel sounds. This 

 had not been observed by the missionaries, nor was it brought to our attention until after 

 leaving the country. On reviewing our notes and vocabularies, we were struck by the 

 evident fact that only three distinct vowel sounds were to be recognised. The a and u, 

 the e and i, and the o and u, are always interchangeable. Some dialects more affect the 

 first, and others the second variation. In other dialects, some individuals pronounce the 

 a, e, and o, and others the u, i, and M, or the same person uses beth indifferently. In 

 three hundred words of the Kamilarai, written down from the pronunciation of a native 

 (of course before this peculiarity with respect to the vowels had been observed), the letter 

 o is not once used, and the letter e but four times. On the other hand, in two hundred 

 words of the Wiradurei, while the o is found sixty-seven times, the u occurs but six; 

 the e, also, is much more frequent than the i, though the difference is not so great, the 

 latter being written chiefly in the diphthongs ai and ei. In several instances, the words 

 are written in two ways, as, betia and betea, pareay and pariay, showing that the pro- 

 nunciation wavered between the two sounds. Words spelled by Mr. Threlkeld with 

 u were written by us with o, as ponkaia for biinkvUa; but probably from another native 

 we should have heard the word agreeably to the latter orthography. This variableness 

 in the sound of the vowels will account for the five characters being used by the mission- 

 aries, where three would be sufficient. B, d, and g, are, in like manner, frequently 

 used, though their places might always be supplied by the corresponding mutes, p, t, and 

 k. In the following grammars, the orthography of the missionaries has in general been 

 adhered to, with the exception of the omission of unnecessary letters, such as double 

 consonants, and the h, which is employed by them to denote sometimes a nasal and 



