Appreciation is indicated by “Aha!” or “Hm-hm!” practically throughout the central and northern districts of Australia; in both cases special emphasis is applied to the second syllable.
A central Australian exclamation calling one to order or attention in a somewhat harsh manner is “Wai!” When one person is being irritated by another, such as a parent by a whining child, the offender is thus rebuked. This word may also become a suffix; it may be combined, for instance, with the radical “irr” and produce a word “Yirrawai,” which is perhaps the strongest in a sense of disgust and reproach available in the Arunndta tongue.
Standing at the end of an adjective, the expression “’n-dora” in the same dialect signifies a great or superlative degree; e.g. “marra” means “nice,” but “marr’n-dora” a conception more like “excellent.” In the opposite sense, “kurrina” (bad) becomes “kurrina’n-dora” (worst). The same suffix can be attached to an adverb. When, say, an emphatic denial is needed, “itja” (no) takes the form of “itja’n-dora.”
There are numerous other syllables, which, when fixed to the end of a word, convey a special significance. When, in the Arunndta, the syllable “tu” is added to a person’s name in address, it really stands in place of a sentence like “Is it not so?” For instance, “Nani knulia atoa utnuriraka, Endola-tu?” when literally translated reads: “This dog man bit Endola, is it not so?” Endola is the name of a woman who is being addressed. In place of “tu,” the longer form of “ditjekwi” might be used.
Again, the suffix “lo” is found in daily use in the same dialect; it stands for the phrase: “Where is?” Hence the completed sentence, “Kwatche-lo?” stands for “Where is the water?”
When one finds “jara” added to a word, plurality is indicated, the sense conveyed being that many of the kind specified by the noun are assumed. The word for girl in the Arunndta is “kware,” consequently “kwarenjara” means that a number of girls are being considered, the “n” being simply interposed for the sake of euphony.
Any proper noun, like the name of a person, may be modified by adding “ia” to it, and, by so doing, one makes it a term of endearment in the vocative case. “Ware” ordinarily means “boy,” but by altering it to “waria” (i.e. “ware-ia”), the meaning becomes “dear boy” or “O boy.”
If the terminal “a” of a substantive is found to be changed to “inna,” the diminutive of the original is implied. A somewhat common name for a woman in the Arunndta is “Unnruba,” but during the years of childhood of a bearer of this name, the appellation is always in the form of “Unnrubinna”; in later years this changes to “Unnruba” more or less automatically.
A diminutive sense is also conveyed by duplicating an original word. In the eastern Aluridja dialect “kaitji” means an ordinary spear, whereas “kaitji-kaitji” is an expression applied to a toy spear. The Dieri recognize a Supreme Being whom they call “Mura”; any one of their numerous demi-gods, however, from whom they trace their descent is referred to as a “Mura-Mura.”