Ray & Haudon — The Languages of Torres Straits — 11. 123 



considerably influenced by those of Australia, in the neighbourhood of 

 Cape York. There has no doubt been a large amount of intercourse 

 with the G-udang blacks, but this has not apparently affected, the 

 grammatical structure of the languages. The Gudang Yocabulary of 

 !MacgilliYray shows numerous words identical with those of the islands, 

 yet the agreements are all in the names of objects, not in verbs or 

 pronouns. In ATuralug words, as they appear in the vocabulaiy, the 

 slurred pronunciation of words is often marked by the insertion of r. 

 Example: larit, man, sarima, Tcdrala, for hait, rnai, saima, haba, &c. 



2. Gumulaig. — The speech of these islanders, in the centre of the 

 Straits, probably represents the purest form of the language. 



3. Saihailaig. — The islands inhabited by this division (Boigu, 

 Dauan and Saibai) are very near to the Daudai coast, and have 

 probably received words thence. ISIacGregor found that Saibai words 

 were known to the natives of ITowat and Dabu, who, ignorant of 

 •each other's dialect, had to open a conversation in the island dialect. 

 The names given to the natives of the mainland, opposite Saibai and. 

 Boigu, Dalu-Jai, and Toga-lai, show what is probably the Saibai 

 termination for a clan, laig. The names Dabu and Toga may be the 

 Saibai, darjja and tuga, bush and mangrove. On the mainland, in the 

 same neighbourhood, is the ]lylai Xussa, which in Saibai means Pearl 

 Pdver. In Boigu final 6 is more clearly pronounced than in Saibai. 



4. KidJudaig. — These people occupy the eastern portion of the 

 Straits, and are nearest to the lliriam. The language of Hasig shows 

 more words like the ^Miriam than that of any other of the islands. 



§ I. — Alphabet. 



1. YowELS. — a as yd. father ; a as in a^ ; e as fl in date ; e as in ?^^ ; 

 e as Lifu e and Prench emle; i 0.% ee in. feet ; ? as in «Y ; o as in own ; 

 6 as in on ; o as German d in schbn, or nearly as English o in forty ; u as 

 00 in soon ; m as in up. 



3IacGregor's Yocabulary has a few words with d {mdi, dadu- 

 gciiga), but no indication is given of the sound intended. In the 

 other vocabularies these words are spelled with a or 6. The vowel 6 

 represents a sound which varies between a and o, and some words 

 appear to be spelled indifferently with a, e, o,ox o : e. g. hai, Jcei, Tcoi, 

 or Jcoi', sahi or soli; hasa or hosa ; mart or rnori. A few words in 

 ilacgregor have 6 where others have u : e. g. moi for 7mu. The 



