\rf\-ng in "singer." It is frequently an initial sound, 

 a position which it never occupies in English. 



[6] = th in "thin." 



[S] = th in "other." 



jV] is the cacuminal or Somersetshire r, formed by bend- 

 ing the point of the tongue backward, so that the lower sur- 

 face approaches the top of the palate. In its strongest form 

 this sound is heard in the south-western counties of England, 

 but it underlies, and is probably the origin of the "untrilled 

 /•" in London speech and in 'standard English." It is very 

 noticeable in American English: [nu:'jark] for [nju:'jo:k], 

 "New York." It is almost unknown on the Continent, but 

 is said to exist in Swedish. It is perhaps worthy of remark, 

 in view of the similarity which has been shown to exist 

 between the Dravidian and Australian systems of kinship, that 

 both the cacuminal and rolled r occur in all the principal 

 Indian languages — Sanscritic and Dravidian, just as they do 

 in many Australian languages. In native pronunciation the 

 rolled or trilled r [r] is always clearly heard, as in Scotch or 

 Irish speech, or English of the concert room. As far as I know, 

 Schurmann 0) is the only author who has noted the existence 

 of these two forms of the r in an Australian language, and he 

 points out that the meaning of many words depends on which 

 sound is employed. Unfortunately he does not indicate the 

 cacuminal r by a different type. It would be very interesting 

 to know whether this peculiar sound occurs in the native 

 languages of the other Australian States. As [/•] is pro- 

 nounced so far back in the mouth, it is often difficult to 

 diagnose exactly the preceding vowel -and to say whether it 

 ought to be represented by [a], [03], or [->]. 



[t~\ and [<7] are "thick" varieties of these sounds, formed 

 by pressing the front part of the tongue hard against the 

 upper teeth, while the centre of the tongue is depressed. 



It is often doubtful, in unaccented syllables, whether 

 [a] or [9] should be used to denote the vowel. Final [a] 

 seems always to pass into [a] in rapid speech, e.g., [r/anta, 

 T/anta] 



The stressed or accented syllable is indicated by the sign 

 ] placed hefore it, but all words in which the accent is not 

 marked are stressed on the first syallable, whether they contain 

 two or more syllables. Thus the words [kundada, narinjeri, 

 and kaka/di], although of 3 and 4 syllables, are all accen- 

 tuated on the first ['kundada, 'narinjeri, 'kaka/'di]. 



Letters and single words in the phonetic alphabet occur- 

 ring in the ordinary text are placed within square brackets. 



(1) "A Vocabulary of the Parnkalla language," p. 1. C. W. 

 Schurmann. Adelaide, 1844. 



