 On vacations back in Morpeth, Elkin was impressed by Capell's linguistic gifts, and eventually arranged a lectureship in linguistics for him in 1945.He was appointed reader in 1948.Notwithstanding his extensive work on Papuan and Polynesian languages, including dictionaries of Fijian, Palauan and Western Futuna, Capell managed to make important contributions to Australian linguistics, particularly in discovering typologically distinct north-western languages which could not be assimilated to the standard Pama-Nyungan language family.