Page:The Native Tribes of South Australia (1879).djvu/54

THE POWER OF THE LETTERS USED IN SPELLING NATIVE NAMES. THE sounds of the letters are adopted from the orthography recommended by the Royal Geographical Society. The consonants are to be sounded as in English, except that g is invariably hard. The vowels are to be sounded, for the most part, as in the following English words: a as in father; e as in there, they; ai has the sound of long i; i as in fatigue; o as in old; ow as in cow, now; u as in rude; and oo as in moon. Ng at the beginning of native words is very common, and the best rule for pronouncing it is that given by Dr. Livingstone, i. e., to say the word as if there was an i before the ng, but to give as little of the sound of the i as possible. Dl and ny are also found at the beginning of words, as dlomari (fog), nyrippin (washing), nyring-kin (warming oneself); in both of these the y has a consonantal sound.