The Gundungurra Language

"The Gundungurra Language" by R. H. Mathews is a scientific publication written in the early 20th century. The book offers an in-depth analysis of the Gundungurra language, which belongs to the Dhar'rook and Gun'dungur'ra tribes located in New South Wales, Australia. It focuses on the grammatical structure, phonetics, and vocabulary of the language, illuminating the intricacies of an Indigenous Australian language that exhibits unique features such as inflection for number and person. The content is a comprehensive study of the Gundungurra language, detailing its orthography, noun classification, gender distinctions, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, prepositions, and adverbs. Mathews meticulously breaks down the rules of the language, explaining how nouns and verbs are conjugated for singular, dual, and plural forms, as well as the inflectional morphology present in various parts of speech. Through a structured approach, the book highlights both the similarities and unique characteristics of the Gundungurra language in comparison to other languages, providing a valuable resource for linguists and those interested in Indigenous Australian cultures. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Robert Hamilton Mathews (1841–1918) was an Australian surveyor and self-taught anthropologist who studied the Aboriginal cultures of Australia, especially those of Victoria, New South Wales and southern Queensland. He was a member of the Royal Society of New South Wales and a corresponding member of the Anthropological Institute of London.