ABORIGINAL TRIBES OF NEW SOUTH WALES AND VICTORIA. 205 



ceremonies and customs of the Australian aborigines, 

 which I have published in the journals of some of the lead- 

 ing learned societies of Europe and America, as well as in 

 this country. See " Bibliography " at the end of this article. 



The system of orthoepy adopted is that recommended by 

 the Royal Geographical Society, London, but a few ad- 

 ditional rules of spelling have been introduced by me, to 

 meet the requirements of the Australian pronunciation. 



Eighteen letters of the English alphabet are sounded, 

 comprising thirteen consonants, namely : 6, d, g, li, k, I, m, 

 n, p, r, t, iv, 7/, and five vowels : a, e, i, o, u. 



As far as possible, vowels are unmarked, but in some 

 instances, to prevent ambiguity, the long sound of a, e, I, o 

 and u are given as here represented. Where the short 

 sound of these vowels was otherwise doubtful, they are 

 marked thus : a, e, 6 and ii. 



It is frequently difficult to distinguish between the short 

 sound of a and that of u. A thick sound of I is occasionally 

 met with, which closely resembles the short sound of u or a. 



B has an intermediate pronunciation between its proper 

 sonant sound and the surd sound of p. The two letters are 

 practically interchangeable. 



G is hard in all cases, and often has the sound of k, with 

 which it is geuerally interchangeable. 



W always commences a syllable or word, and has its 

 ordinary English sound. The sound of wh in our word 

 "what" has no equivalent in the native tongue. 



Ng at the beginning of a word or syllable has a peculiar 

 nasal sound as in the English word " singer." If we alter 

 the syllabification of this word and write it "si-nger," then 

 the ng of "-nger" will represent the aboriginal sound. Or 

 if we take the expression "hang up" and change it into 

 "ha-ngup," and then pronounce it so that the two syllables 



