forms is
the older? Probably the Gudang, or the form in ty. If so, the series of
changes is remarkable, and by attending to it we may see how sounds
previously non-existent may become evolved.

Thus--let the original form for breast be tutu. The first change which
takes place is the insertion of the sound of y, making tyu-tyu; upon the
same principle which makes certain Englishmen say gyarden, kyind, and
skyey, for garden, kind, and sky. The next change is for ty to become
tsh. This we find also in English, where picture or pictyoor is
pronounced pictshur, etc. This being the change exhibited in the Gudang
form tyutyu (pr. choochoo, or nearly so) we have a remarkable phonetic
phenomenon, namely the existence of a compound sound (tsh) wherein s is
an element, in a language where s, otherwise than as the element of a
compound, is wanting. In other words, we have a sound formed out of s,
but not s itself; or (changing the expression still further) we have s in
certain combinations, but not uncombined. Let, however, the change
proceed, and the initial sound of t be lost. In this case tsh becomes sh.
A further change reduces sh to s.

When all this has taken place--and there are many languages wherein the
whole process is exhibited--the sound of a hitherto unknown articulation
becomes evolved or developed by a natural process of growth, and that in
a language where it was previously wanting. The phenomenon, then, of the
evolution of new simple sounds should caution us against over-valuing
phonetic differences. So should such facts as that of the closely allied
dialects of the Gudang and Kowrarega differing from each other by the
absence or presence of so important a sound as that of s.

The comparative absence, however, of the sound of s, in Australian, may
be further refined on in another way; and it may be urged that it is
absent, not because it has never been developed, or called into
existence, but because it has ceased to exist. In the Latin of the
Augustan age as compared with that of the early Republic, we find the s
of words like arbos changed into r (arbor). The old High German, also,
and the Icelandic, as compared with the Meso-Gothic, does the same. Still
the change only affects certain inflectional sy1lables, so that the
original s being only partially displaced, retains its place in the
language, although it occurs in fewer words. In Australian, where it is
wanting at all, it is wanting in toto: and this is a