Item 02: Kamilaroi, and other Australian Languages, by Rev. William Ridley, 2nd ed. (Sydney, 1875) - Page 17

[Page 17]

NOUNS. 5

sheva in the Hebrew grammars, this word may be written thus– "Kamilaroi." The tendency of the aborigines to attach a vowel to every consonant is known to all who have observed their pronunciation of English words.

They habitually soften the sound of the thin mutes, so that it is difficult to determine, in many instances, whether the consonant they sound is b or p, d or t, g or k. This accounts for the divergencies in spelling. Again, between the short vowel sounds of a and u it is often difficult to determine. When it is remembered that miscellany, servant, banana, abundance, are pronounced by many English people as if they were spelt "miscelluny, servunt, bunana, abundunce," or, at least, so that no stranger to the language could decide whether the vowel sound in each case was a or u, it will not appear surprising that the short vowels, and especially the half-vowels, of Kamilaroi should be differently rendered by different observers. In support of the spelling "Kamilaroi" in preference to "Gumilroi," it may be here added that, when pronouncing the word "kamil" (no) emphatically, the blacks give the first syllable a prolonged sound, as of a in father. 

NOUNS.

Nouns are declined by suffixes.

There are two nominative cases; the first simply naming the object of attention, the second indicating the agent of the act described in a verb.

Often, however, the agent suffix is omitted, even before an active verb.