Phonic Elements— Vowels. 



a a a 



e (as in yet English) e e o (as in English ton) o 6 



Dij^lithovAjs. 



t d th dh ty (almost like palatal di) y r rr (muffled cerebral) 1 n a ndh 

 p b V w m 



Kabi has no words beginning with '1' or 'r' and its terminal 

 letters are '1,' 'm,' 'n,' 'r,' 'ng,' 'ndh,' and vowels. Initial vowels 

 sometimes occur but very rarely. There are occasionally as initial 

 letters of a syllable such combinations as 'pr,' 'br,' 'kr,' but even 

 between these a semivowel generally steals in. ' S' occurs only in 

 the dog-call ' ise,' 'h' only in one or two foreign words. Writing 

 about Dippil, Dr. F. Miiller says, " In the vocabulary of Rev. W. 

 Ridley there are indeed words in which 'th' and 'dh' appear, but 

 we believe the existence of these sounds in an Australian tongue 

 douJ^tful and due to imperfect apprehension."* Dr. Mailer's dis- 

 trust is perfectly groundless. An English ear cannot be deceived 



Kabi of which Dippil is the nearest neighbour and almost the paral- 

 lel, 'th' is pronounced exactly as in English /a^Aer. The sound of 

 'dh' would be best illustrated by the value which would result 

 from the 'th' in English that being preceded by a distinct 'd.' The 

 Kajji 'v' IS the equivalent of 'b' in some other dialects. Redu- 

 phcation of consonants is frequent, each member of the pair being 

 distinctly enunciated. 



The Noun. 

 ^ Number is denoted not by inflection but by an adjective added. 

 Gender is not marked by inflection excepting that there is a trace 

 of -kan or -gan as a feminine termination in proper names and in 

 the term 'nulangan' a mother-in-lau;\ perhaps derived from 

 ' yiran ' or ' yirkan ' a woman. In all other instances such words 

 as man, woman, mother, are required to indicate tlie sex. Case is 

 expressed by abundant terminations. Probably the nouns are 

 divisible into declensions distinguishable by the stem endings, but 

 I am unable so to classify them. In nouns and pronouns the usual 

 duplicate forms of the nominative occur, the one denoting the 

 subject simply, the other the subject as active agent. 



