Five Hundred Eskimo Words/Chapter 2
The system of symbols adopted in the compilation of the present list is very nearly the same as the one used by Thalbitzer in his works on Greenland phonetics, and thus also very nearly like the one employed by "l'Association phonétique internationale" [1]. As, however, I cannot claim to be regarded as anything but a layman in linguistics, I have, in certain particulars, simplified his alphabet, so as not to impart to my notes a higher degree of accuracy than I can venture to substantiate. On the other hand, it has proved necessary to introduce a few new symbols of sounds, which are unfamiliar to the Greenland Eskimo language. Everything considered, the Greenland and the Central Eskimo dialects are, however, extremely closely related, also from a phonetic point of view.
The modified system presents the following appearance:
| Consonants | Closed | Fricative | Nasal | Semi- vowels | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| voiceless | voiced | voiceless | voiced | |||||||||
| Bilabial | p | b | ƀ | f | v | m | w | |||||
| Dental | t | c | d | s | ʃ | z | ʒ | n | j | |||
| Palatal | k | g | ç | h | x | ɡ | ɳ | — | ||||
| Uvular | q | — | ʀ | r | q̃ | r̃ | — | |||||
| Lateral | — | — | ʟ | l | — | — | ||||||
| Glottal | ’ | — | — | — | — | — | ||||||
| Vowels | Open | Semi- open |
Semi-closed | Closed | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| not rounded |
rounded | not rounded |
rounded | |||
| Normal | a | ä | e | o | i | u |
| Uvularized | ᴀ | — | ᴇ | ɔ | ɪ | — |
| Nasalized | ᴀ̃ | — | ᴇ̃ | ɔ̃ | ɪ̃ | — |
An exponent after one of the common symbols denotes a faint glide towards the sound of the exponent or a very faintly articulated and, therefore, hardly audible sound, for instance uʷ, tˢ.
As regards the pronunciation the following particulars must also be given, the reader being at the same time requested to bear in mind that the comparisons with the sounds of known, European languages can naturally only be approximate, although the Eskimo sounds in many cases are very close to the European ones.[2]
| a: | as in French "aller"; au and ai are always diphthongs, as in English "how", "high". In modern West Greenlandic a complete assimilation of the u and i sounds has frequently taken place, a long a being the result. In the other dialects the diphthongs, on the other hand, are common. In the Thule District and at Kazan River au an ai sometimes approach öu and äi.[3] |
| ᴀ: | the uvularized sound corresponding with a, as in English "far". |
| ᴀ̃: | nasalized ᴀ; occurs only before r, combined with a nasal consonant. |
| ä: | most frequently as in English "hat"; at times somewhat more closed, as in French "lait". |
| b: | a sound which does not occur in modern West Greenlandic. I think I have heard it in some cases as a true, voiced sound (media), perhaps as in English, hardly as marked as in French. Most frequently, however, b seems half-voiced as the Danish b, but it is always a sound which is clearly distinct from p. |
| ƀ: | labialized sound between b and v; principally occurs before v and not in modern West Greenlandic. |
| c: | at first I had not used this sign in my notes. In the cases where the sound combination tˢ occurs in West Greenlandic I had, for the dialects of Simpson Peninsula and Kazan River, tˢ or tˡ, in some cases even tʰ. However, it seemed to me that the sound was in reality more uniform than indicated by these symbols. Since then I have read Thalbitzer's description of the phonetics of the East Greenland dialects, which had not been published at that time. Here mention is made of a sound, expressed by the sign c — "c (unvoiced, mouillé) is a mingling of a palatal t and s, at the same time post-dental and prepalatal."[4] I have now no doubt that it is this sound I have heard, and therefore I have not hesitated to introduce the symbol c for the dialects mentioned above. Melville Peninsula, however, seems to have an actual tˢ as in West Greenland. As to the Thule District I have retained the writing tˢ, although the s is frequently almost inaudible, and the sound strongly approaches the northern West Greenland t. |
| ɔ: | see after o. |
| d: | half-voiced, more rarely voiced sound; unknown in modern West Greenlandic. Cf. above under b. |
| e: | as in French "été". |
| ᴇ: | "uvalarized" sound, corresponding to e, viz. an e which, under the influence of a succeeding uvular sound, is articulated farther back in the mouth than e pure. |
| ᴇ̃: | nasalized ᴇ; occurs in similar combinations as ᴀ̃. |
| f: | bilabial sound, very different from the English and French labiodental f. Only in West Greenland is the labiodental f gaining ground probably owing to Danish influence.[5] |
| g: | as in English "begin", French "gant". This sound, which does not occur in modern West Greenlandic, is far more rarely half-voiced than b and d. |
| g: | a voiced, "open" g, corresponding to the unvoiced x, as in (North) German "regen", Danish "age", Russian "когда". |
| g: | palatalized g; unknown in modern West Greenlandic. |
| h: | only in a minority of cases — apart from the Kazan River dialect — the simple expiration as in English and Danish. As a rule it is pronounced with the posterior or middle part of the tongue slightly raised, thus becoming an intermediate sound between (English) h and x, or between (English) h and ʃ. It is one of the most difficult sounds to define, and in many cases — still apart from Kazan River — it seems to depend upon individual inclination whether h, x or ʃ prevail. This is particularly marked in the Thule District where the h-sound is now slowly beginning to disappear under the influence of immigrators from West Greenland. Here h is practically unknown. |
| i: | as in French "ici". |
| ɪ: | "uvularized" i (cf. ᴇ), suggesting the Russian ы; in all probability not occurring in West Greenland. |
| ɪ̃: | nasalized ɪ: occurs in the same combinations as ᴀ̃ and ᴇ̃. |
| j: | as English y in "yard", German and Danish j. In the Central dialects there is sometimes an approach to ʒ. |
| k: | as French c in "cas"; especially in front of a, o and ɔ very faintly aspirated[6] and thus different from the corresponding Germanic sound. |
| l: | as in French "aller", but very different from the "hollow" English l in "always" and from the Russian л. Sometimes it seems to be preceded by a very faint d-sound. |
| ʟ: | unvoiced l. |
| m: | as in English "man". |
| n: | as in English "no". |
| ɳ: | as ng in English "song". |
| o: | as French "eau". |
| ɔ: | the uvularized sound; corresponding to o. |
| ɔ̃: | nasalized ɔ; occurs in the same combinations as ᴀ̃, ᴇ̃ and ɪ̃. |
| p: | as French p; aspiration as in the case of k. |
| q: | uvular k, in the standard Greenlandic orthography indicated by the sign ᴋ. |
| q̃: | the nasalized consonant corresponding to q; rare in West Greenland, but extremely common on Melville Peninsula. |
| r: | a uvular, untrilled r as in Danish and North German, but very different both from the English point r, and the Parisian trilled (rolled) r. In the Thule District the intervocalic r may be to some extent labialized, so as almost to approach w; this also appears from the — for that matter very unreliable — rendering of Polar Eskimo words by English-speaking authors. |
| ʀ: | voiceless r, almost as ch in German "ach", Scotch "loch". |
| r̃: | nasalized r; only occurs between a vowel and m, n or ɳ. |
| s: | voiceless point s, as in English "sing". Parry writes: "The letters r and s are never pronounced as with us, but in a thick, guttural manner, the former approximating to the Northumbrian dialect, and the latter to the Scotch ch (as in the word: loch)".[7] The latter comparaison is hardly correct, but may suggest a sound somewhat like ʃ. Parry's list of words is from Aivilik and Iglulik. In the former district both s and ʃ occur, in the latter now hardly any other voiceless sound than s (judging from the quite few Iglulik Eskimos I must own I have heard), but on the other hand the voiced z. Should Parry's statements then be taken as evidence of a modified pronunciation? |
| ʃ: | a voiceless palatalized sound the formation of which Thalbitzer describes in the following manner: "The point of the tongue rests passive against the back of the lower teeth, and the middle (and back?) of the tongue is somewhat raised. The groove stretches over a large portion of the surface of the front of the tongue".[8] The sound in all probability is somewhat reminiscent of the Russian palatalized c, for instance in "сеыя". It is, at any rate, rather different from English sh, with which it is sometimes compared. On the other hand, it may now and then rather approach L. In West Greenland a faint i-sound sometimes seems to be heard before ʃ, that is 'ʃ.[9] However the ʃ-sound is on the point of disappearing in favour of s, in the same manner as bilabial f is disappearing in favour of labiodental f. In this list s has been employed everywhere as far as West Greenland is concerned, although my informant frequently used ʃ in connected speech. |
| t: | dental as in French "été"; faintly aspirated in the same cases as k and p. A characteristic and common combination of sounds is tˢ (cf. the above under c). In this, as in the Russian ц, the two elements are closely joined and together take no longer than a single consonant. |
| u: | as in German and Danish u, French ou. |
| v: | bilabial v, as Spanish b in "Habana"; like the bilabial f in West Greenland on the point of disappearing in favour of the labio-dental v. |
| w: | at Kazan River as English w, otherwise slightly less rounded. |
| x: | the voiceless sound, corresponding to g; as German ch in "ich" or Russian palatalized x. |
| z: | semi-voiced, more rarely voiced, palatalized sound, corresponding to ʃ; very different from English z in zeal, rather as Russian palatalized з. |
| ʒ: | the same sound as z, but with what the Germans call "Rauschlaut". It sounds almost between Danish j (English y) and French j, though it more nearly approaches the former. After g it is sometimes so faintly pronounced that it is almost on the point of coalescing into one sound, a long palatalized ç. |
| ': | glottal stop, quite as in Danish "Kam", "gul". At Kazan River and, slightly less marked, in Committee Bay it is a common and characteristic phonetic component of the language. |
The length of a sound is expressed by · after the sign in question, for instance a·, k·; in the Eskimo language the quantity of the sounds plays a far greater part than in most Indo-European languages. Thalbitzer's remark "a long vowel or consonant in English, French etc. is of a shorter duration than the corresponding sound in Greenlandic"[10] also applies to the Central Eskimo dialects. In these we may also meet the same four combinations of long and short sounds. It is most difficult to determine the length of the voiceless fricatives, because they are always, even when short, of somewhat longer duration than the other short consonants.[11] Therefore, in the list errors in writing down these sounds may have been committed.
As contrasted with the length of sounds the stress is of less importance than in English and other Germanic languages, and therefore it has only been indicated in the list in exceptional cases, viz. by ˡ before the sound in question, for instance ˡa. The remarks made by Thalbitzer may be quoted as a main rule: "The dynamic accent in a great many words is uncertain or only slightly differentiated . . . There is always a marked stress on the vowel before a long (geminated) consonant, or on a long vowel . . . Besides, the final syllable has a tendency to attract the stress to itself".[12]
The movement of speech is, as a rule, rather slow. The musical accent varies greatly from one dialect to another.
The Indo-European languages are so well known from a phonetic point of view that it would be presumptuous on my part to' undertake a comparison between their sound systems and those of the Eskimo language. Besides the two linguistic stocks in question have had such a slight connection with each other outside Greenland — where a certain influence, as mentioned above, really can be traced — that a comparison would hardly offer many points of interest at the present stage of the linguistic study. This is presumably different in the case of the adjoining Indian languages, which, for one thing, are less known phonetically, and which have had an opportunity of influencing the language of the Eskimos for untold centuries.
On Newfoundland the Eskimos met the now extinct Beothuk, in Southern Alaska they now live beside the Tlingit, and in Siberia the Chukchi are their immediate neighbours. The only two linguistic groups which are, to any great extent, conterminous with the Eskimos are, however, the Algonkians towards the east and the Athapascans towards the west.
In Labrador the Eskimos border on the Algonkian tribes Montagnais, Naskapi and Cree, and even though the latter tribe is now, to the west of Hudson Bay, cut off from the Eskimos by the Athapascan Chipewyans (Caribou Eaters), before the penetration of the latter from the Mackenzie region there has been a connection between Eskimos and Cree. The only Algonkian language I have heard is the Cree. Unfortunately I have no notes about it, but I think that I may venture to maintain that its sound system with its very easy — also for us Europeans — and, as it seem, comparatively few sounds is widely different from the Eskimo.
The one of the two Indian stocks with which the Eskimos west of Hudson Bay are in direct contact is the Athapascan. As far as the Western Eskimos are concerned it is a question of the Kutchin, Khotana and Ahtena tribes, whereas for the Central Eskimos it is the Chipewyans and the closely related tribes Yellow Knives (Tatsanotinne) and Dog-Ribs (Thlingchadinne). At Churchill I have frequently had the opportunity of hearing the Chipewyan (Caribou Eaters') dialect, and I have made a number of notes regarding it, upon which the following remarks are based.
In comparison with the Eskimo consonants the Chipewyans, in the first place, lack some bilabial sounds, viz. p, f and v. On the other hand, they have two interdental sounds, a voiceless as in English "think", and a voiced as in English "that", the former especially being one of the most common sounds. The very characteristic palatalized Eskimo consonants are entirely unknown to the Chipewyans, who in addition to the common dental s have the corresponding voiced sound, and further a consonant like the English sh, which is sometimes voiced like French j; finally, besides the common dental t, they have a very strongly aspirated dental t, a palatal (?) t and the corresponding strongly aspirated sound, a common k and a strongly aspirated k.[13] The Chipewyans, on the other hand, lack the characteristic uvular sounds q and q̃ .
If we turn to the vowels, we shall find that with the Chipewyans the list is extended by a sound as in English "law", another as in French "seul", an unstressed vowel as in the first syllable of English "to-day" [ǝ] and, finally, a far more extensive use of the vowel in French "lait" than is found in the Eskimo language, whereas the one resembling it, viz. that in English "hat", presumably does not occur. On the other hand, we naturally lack all the Eskimo uvularized vowels. Among the Chipewyans, the nasal vowels play a similar part to the one played by the uvularized vowels among the Eskimos, all Chipewyans vowels being frequently nasalized with the exception of u (?) and ǝ.
Of more "characteristic" sounds only x, g, ʀ, r and L are in reality common to both lauguages. A glottal stop is mentioned by Goddard as occuring with the Chipewyans at Cold Lake.[14] I am fairly certain that anything resembling the Danish glottal stop does not occur in the Churchill dialect, except perhaps initially (spiritus lenis), as I could hardly have failed to catch such a characteristic and homelike sound.
The peculiar and, to our ears, by no means beautiful character of the language of the Chipewyans is due to the nasal vowels, the interdental fricatives, and the strongly aspirated tenues, in the same manner as the Eskimo language is distinguished by the uvular, and partly also by the palatalized consonants and uvularized vowels. Generally speaking the phonetics of the two languages must be said to be so far removed from each other that any larger mutual influence is outside the bounds of probability.
As to the possibility that the unvoiced l [ʟ] has been adopted into the Eskimo language from foreign sources, see p. 32.
- ↑ Thalbitzer in "Handb. Amer. Lang.". p. 975.
- ↑ Ibid. pp. 975 sqq.
- ↑ On the other hand, I have not heard au pronounced as äu; the occurrence of this diphthong is maintained by Stein.
- ↑ Thalbitzer: Lang. and Folkl., p. 121.
- ↑ Thalbitzer: Phon. Study, p. 103.
- ↑ Thalbitzer: Phonet. Stud., p. 71.
- ↑ Parry, p. 553.
- ↑ Thalbitzer: Phon. Stud., p. 89. — Cf. Stein, p. 198.
- ↑ Cf., however, Thalbitzer: Phon. Stud., p. 89.
- ↑ Cf. Thalbitzer: Phon. Stud., p. 125.
- ↑ Ibid. p. 120.
- ↑ Thalbitzer: in "Handb. Amer. Lang.", p. 982.
- ↑ The Chipewyans regard tenues and the corresponding media as the same sounds. One may hear the same person pronounce the same word, sometimes with voiceless, sometimes with voiced consonants.
- ↑ Goddard, p. 6.