The specimens on which this discussion is based were collected for the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, in the immediate vicinity of Seattle. The native terms for the various models and for the parts of the canoes are in the “Duwamish” dialect of Salish. The sounds occurring in this and the other Salish dialects spoken on the upper part of Puget sound are represented in the following tabulation.
i, as in _machine_ ι, as in _pin_ e, as in _fête_ ε, as in _met_ α, as in _hat_ Δ, as in _but_ u, as in _rule_ υ, as in _full_ o, as in _note_ ↄ, as ou in _ought_ a, as in _bar_
---------------------+-----------+----------+-----------+-------+-----------| _Stop_ |Labialized |Continuant|Affricative|Lateral|Affricative| | stop | | | | lateral | ---------------------+---+-------+----------+-----+-----+---+---+---+-------| | | S | F | | F | | | F | |S | | F | | | o | o | | o | | | o | |o | | o | |S | n | r |S | r | S | S | r |S |n |S | r | |u | a | t |u | t | u | u | t |u |a |u | t | |r | n | i |r | i | r | r | i |r |n |r | i | |d | t | s |d | s | d | d | s |d |t |d | s | ----------|--|---|---|---|-------|----------|-----|-----|---|---|---|-------| _Labial_ |p | b | p’| | | | | | | | | | _Dental_ |t | d | t’| | | s | ts | ts’|L | l |tL | tL’ | _Alveolar_| | | | | | c | tc | tc’| | | | | _Palatal_ |k | g | g’|kw | kw’ | | | | | | | | _Velar_ |q | γ | q’|qw | qw’ | | | | | | | | _Glottal_ | ’| | | | |h,´ | | | | | | | ----------|--|---|---|---|-------|----------|-----|-----|---|---|---|-------|
Of these sounds the following need, for the casual reader, some explanation. Surd _l_ (written _L_) is an _l_ produced without the help of the vocal cords. The symbol _c_ has approximately the value of _sh_ in _she_. The digraph _tc_ is sounded like _ch_ in _church_. The symbols in those columns which are headed “fortis” represent exploded or cracked consonants, produced with hard pressure of the tongue, followed by an abrupt release. The sound is quite sharp, markedly different from anything in English. The “velar” sounds likewise seem quite strange to English-speaking people; they are produced by making contact between the tongue and the back part of the palate (the velum). The glottal stop (’) represents a catch which checks the breath in the throat (larynx). Two sounds resembling English _h_ seem to exist, one of them very weak, represented here by ^{ c}. Superior letters represent whispered or weakly articulated sounds.