TM£ WOMBAT. 



the bang in your examples are the pronouns and the numerals. I 

 would therefore write your singular thus : — 



Bang-ik. Bang-ong-ik. 



Bang-ngin. Bang-ngo-di-ngin. 



Bang-nduk. Bang-ngo-di-duk. 



If this supposition were true, then the suffixed pronouns ik, 

 ngin and duk would be an interesting parallel to the Melanesian 

 ('New Hebrides) pronoun-forms used as suffixes to the verb, and 

 also to the usage of the classic language, as Latin ama-ba?ra, 

 ama-bas, ama-bai, <&c. In fact, in Aneityumese and other JNew 

 Hebrides dialects k is the suffix-pronoun ' I.' And ngin (which I 

 have written) is the Lake Macquarie pronoun 'thou'; elsewhere 

 it is in. The duk of the third person may be a local demonstrative 

 used by the Geelong tribe. There is always great variety in these 

 demonstratives. 



(5) " Against taking ik for ' I ' lies the fact that this same 

 ik or lik occurs in your examples of the triple 1st, 2nd and 3rd 

 persons, all through. Unless these examples are wrong, it cannot 

 there mean ' I.' But when 1 examined Taplin's Narrinyeri 

 examples I found similar inconsistencies, which I took to be errors 

 made by the compiler. 



(6) " Although your dual and ternal examples seem to 

 contain the numbers 2 and 3, yet the difficulties in explaining your 

 whole paradigm of these pronouns on that footing are so great 

 that I would not lightly venture an opinion, until I have an 

 opportunity ol examining the sentences from which these examples 

 are taken. 



(7) " I have omitted to say that in the possessive forms, in 

 paragraph 2 of this opinion, I write ngo-di because kt, that is, ngo, 

 is a well-known Australian genitive form (as in Lake Macquarie 

 dialect), and ong (l&t person) may be iorngo. The Geelong ngo-di 

 would then correspond with the Awabakal genitive in ko-ba. 



In the Dravidian languages of India ko, ku, kei are the 

 common dative forms, but they are also used for the 

 genitive." 



It is to be understood that the foregoing is merely a preliminary 

 opinion formed on a hasty perusal of my MS. (A Discovery in the 

 Australian Language), at a time when Dr. Fraser was fully occupied with 

 preparations for the work of his section (Anthropology) of the Science 

 Congress at Sydney (1898)." 



While giving this opinion, I also advised Mr, Cary to write 

 out the facts of his discovery and to send them to me as a paper 



