CHAPTER XII
LANGUAGE
In the original classification of Australian languages which I give in Eaglehawk and Crow, they are divided into six main classes, designated in accordance with the territory over which they were spoken. The third of these classes includes the dialects of New South Wales and those of the south, the centre, and the east of Queensland. It is to subdivision 1 of this third class, embracing the coast languages, that Kabi and Wakka belong.
Being the languages of adjoining tribes, they have a number of words in common, but the surprising fact is the dissimilarity between them both in vocabulary and in inflections. The Kabi language is the more musical, and, to my mind, the least corrupt of the two. The Wakka is more consonantal, it has the palatal ch very decided, and its frequent shorter forms, as compared with Kabi, suggest the operation
