152 



Aborigines of the West Coast of South Australia, 

 vocabularies and ethnographical notes. 



By Daisy M. Bates. 

 (Communicated by J. M. Black). (1 ^ 



[Read September 12, 1918.] 



The alphabet used to express native words is that of the 

 International Phonetic Association, with slight modifications, 

 and the characters which require explanation are as follow: — 



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

 the Scottish a in ''man." 



[e] as in "they." 



[e] as in bed; when long [e : ] as in "there." 



[i] as in "pity" [piti] ; when long [i : ] as in "marine." 



[oj as English o in "not." 



[u] as oo in foot; [u : ] as in boot. 



[o] as if in "turn" or e in "wanderer." 



[au] and [ai] nearly as ow in "now" and at in "aisle." 



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



[j]~ ?/ in voun g- [tj] an d [dj] are the sounds heard 

 in English "tune" [tju:n] and "duty" [dju:ti], and 

 must not be confused with English ch or j, two 

 sounds which are quite unknown in Australian 

 languages. 



[rf\ — ng in " singer . ' ' 



[6] = t'h in "thin." 



[B]=th in "other." 



[g] is always pronounced as in "go." 



(i) This paper has been entrusted to me by Mrs. Bates, who 

 has been doing philanthropic work among the aborigines at the 

 Wirilya native camp, near Yalata, and at other places on the 

 West Coast, and has thus had exceptional opportunities for con- 

 tinuing, among natives of South Australia, the valuable observa- 

 tions on language and customs which she has already made with 

 regard to those of Western Australia. My share of the work has 

 been almost wholly confined to transliterating the native words and 

 arranging the vocabulary alphabetically. The language dealt 

 with here is essentially the same as that spoken at Murat Bay, 

 of which I published a short vocabulary in these Transactions, 

 xli., 3-8.— J. M. Black. 



