THE 



Transactions 



OF 



The Royal Society of South Australia, 



Vol. XLI. 



Vocabularies of Three South Australian Native 

 Languages -Wirrung, Narrinyeri, and wongaioya. 



By J. M. Black. 



' [Read September 14, 1916.] 



The alphabet used is that of the International Phonetic 

 Association, with slight modifications, and the characters 

 which require explanation are as follow : — 



[a] when long, is the English a in "father" ; when short, 

 the Scottish a in "man." 



[e] is the close sound heard long, but not quite pure, in 

 the English words "they" [5e:i], " pail " [pe : ll]. It is rather 

 rare in Australian languages, and is never heard short in 

 them. 



[e] is the open English e in ''bed" [bed]. When long it 

 sounds like a in "fare" or e in "there" [fe:9, Be : a]. 



Long [i:] is pronounced as i in "marine." When without 

 the mark of length it is employed to represent the short, open 

 sound heard in "pity" [piti]. This is a very common final 

 vowel in Australian languages, just as in English. It is more 

 strictly represented in the phonetic alphabet by [i], and in the 

 rare instances where it occurs long, or half-long, it is printed 



[o] is the English o in "not." 



[u] when long [u:l, sounds like oo in "boot"; when short, 

 like oo in "foot." 



[ce] is the open French eu or German 6, as in "peur, 

 Kopfe" [pooee:r, 'koepfa] 



[a] is the obscure e heard in "wanderer" [Vondaro]. 



A long vowel is indicated by the sign [ ; ] placed after it. 



[j] = English y in "young." 



B 



