system, and linguistic
questions, such as those relating to suffixes, come in. We may therefore
briefly discuss at this point the meaning of the class names.

On the whole it may be said that we know the meaning of the class names
only in exceptional cases. The Kiabara, Kamilaroi, Annan River,
Kuinmurbura, Narrang-ga, and two of the West Australian names can be
translated (see Table I). But with these exceptions we have no certain
knowledge of the meaning of the single class names.

Conjectures are of comparatively little value. For in the first place
the number of words recorded from any given tribe is as a rule very
small, and little or no indication of the pronunciation is given even in
the latest works on Australian ethnography. The variations, evidently
purely arbitrary and due to the want of training in phonetics, are
frequently very considerable. And finally the area over which the names
prevail is sufficiently great to give us our choice from half a dozen or
more different tribal languages, which combined with the variation in
the form of the words, adds very considerably to the probability that
there will be found somewhere within the area a word or words bearing a
deceptively close resemblance to the class names. How far this is the
case may be made clear by one or two instances of chance resemblances
between animal names (it seems on the whole probable that if the names
are translateable they will turn out to be animal names) in the same or
neighbouring tribes. The meaning of Arunta seems to be white
cockatoo[116], but we also find a word almost indistinguishable from it
in sound--eranta--with the meaning of pelican[117]. Kulbara means emu
and koolbirra kangaroo[118]. Malu (=kangaroo), mala (=mouse), and male
(=swan) are found in tribes of West Australia, though not of tribes
living in immediate proximity one to another[119]. But perhaps the best
example is that of Derroein, which, as we have seen, means kangaroo. In
addition to durween (young male kangaroo) we find at no great distance
the words dirrawong (=iguana) and deerooyn (=whip snake), either of
which bears a sufficiently close resemblance to the class name to be
accepted as a translation for it in the absence of other
competitors[120].

With these facts in mind such suggestions as an attentive study of
vocabularies has disclosed are naturally put forward with a full sense
of their uncertainty, they are of a purely tentative nature.

For the Kooba