77 



[oe] is the French eii or German o, as heard in "peur, 

 Kopfe" [poe:r, koepfe]. 



[ai] and [an] are near English / in "fire" and ow in 

 "how," but the first element of the diphthong is distinctly- 

 heard and always bears the stress. The second element is 

 almost consonantal, so that it might be more correct to write 

 [aj, aw]. As [kawi], the term for "water" in some Tindo 

 languages, corresponds to [kabi] in others, it seems to me 

 preferable to write [kawi] rather than [kauwi], as has usually 

 been done in the past. 



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



[j] = English y in "young"; [dj] must not be confused 

 with English j. 



^rj\ = nf/ in "singer." 



[e] = th in "thin." 



[h] = th in "other." 



[r] is the rolled or trilled r, as heard in Scottish or Irish 

 speech, or English of the concert room. 



[r] is the Somersetshire (reflexed or inverted) r, and is 

 a marked peculiarity of Australian native speech. When 

 dealing with this sound in a previous paper (these Trans., 

 xli., 2), I called this the "cacuminal or Somersetshire r," and 

 stated that it was also found in the Sanscritic and Dravidian 

 languages of India. I should have said the Dravidian langu- 

 ages only. The matter is explained by the following note 

 received from Mr. David Jones, M.A., English secretary of 

 the International Phonetic Association: — "A couple of points 

 strike me in connection with what you say about ?• on page 2. 

 Tlie retroflexed fricative (Somersetshire) r (a) occurs in Nor- 

 wegian to my cert.ain knowledge ; I have heard it from 

 Norwegians. I am almost certain it also occurs in Swedish, 

 but cannot at the moment remember hearing it. As for 

 Indian languages, the famous retroflex (cacuminal, cerebral) 

 r of Northern India is quite a different sound. The tongue 

 starts from retroflex position and is then shot forwards and 

 downwards, so that the under-side of it hits against the teeth- 

 ridge and makes a strong flap. The action is like that of 

 flipping with the finger against the thumb. It is the flap 

 which is the characteristic element of the sound. In Southern 

 (Dravidian) India the true Somersetshire r is found. A 

 variety of it occurs in Tamil ; it is often described as some- 

 thing intermediate between r and /. It is the final sound 

 in the word Tamil' [t-^mir]. Ordinary rolled r also occurs in 

 this language, as in the Northern Indian languages." 



These two forms of r (the trilled and the reflexed) were 

 noticed by some of the early writers on Australian languages, 

 although only one expressed the difference in type. Teichelmann 



