IN AUSTRALIA PHILOLOGICALLY EXAMINED. 122 
expressing water. We pass the boundary-line between imitative 
forms and those which are not. Forms in ang and ank are imi- 
tative, but forms in ag and ak are not ; indeed, here we have a sud- 
den and complete reversal of the idea of the imitative principle. 
In the case of m, which brings us to 5, a labial, we have a com- 
paratively soft class of letters to deal with. But & is one of the 
hardest letters in the alphabet. It suits well for such words as 
hack and tack, but on its own merits it is one of the last letters 
that would be chosen to denote water. Yet we see how such 
forms as anga and anka, by regular phonetic law of assimilation, 
are transformed into agga and akka, forms which were notably 
imitative of the sin ging, ringing, sound of waters, into forms which 
are quite the reverse 
n in the language of the aborigines who have shown, as we 
have alread y seen, a strong disposition to use euphonious names for 
streams and waters, how does the matter stand when we cometo such 
hard forms as & to represent water? The illustrations of the form 
are numerous enough, and seem to prove that language flows in a 
channel, and according to laws which operate and assert themselves 
even against strong opposing elements. Thus, we find the hard root 
for water pure and simple in such words as ook, ooko, acah, found on 
the Darling and Murray. There is kokoin, water, at La ke Mac- 
quarie ; also koiw on, rain, at the same place. Ugoa means flood, also 
wukawa, in Kamilaroi ; cake is water at Port Darwin ; uki and 
nuki mean fresh water ‘at Massied, a small island in Torres Straits, 
though nearer New Guinea than Cape ork. As to names in the 
gazetteers, we look for forms in ka, ga, ya, or their phonetic repre- 
sentatives. There is the Koko Cr reek, the Kiah hl Bega, 
or Bemboka River, Bargo River, Micalago Creek, Boiga Creek, 
Cowriga Creek, Culgoa River, Dundaralago Creek, acka Nacka 
Creek, Nagha Lake, Perica Creek, Towaca River, Tungo Creek, 
mbango Creek and Swamp, Paika Lake, Yaouk Creek, Paruka 
Lake, Wondowyee Creek. To these may be added Yargai Island, 
in the Clarence River, again illustrating that the same root-words 
used for waters and island 
Besides all these, there is one notable name which occurs in the 
gazetteers upwards of a score of times. It is the name Oakey, 
applied to creeks, It might be surmised for a moment that this 
is some British name, a the frequency of its occurrence and its 
on in New South Wales and Queensland render this 
rman 
salsig Wicklow. In New South Wales there is Oske ey Creek 
in counties Ashburnham, Bathurst, Darling, Dudley, es 
Murray, alae (twice), Rackurg' ‘and Wellington. Here i 
