Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 1.djvu/329

Rh vowel sound, or a compound, or diphthong. Moreover, our English language is almost hopelessly mixed up between the open, or broad continental pronunciation of the vowels, and the narrow, or closed sound; so that no one is sure that an "a" stands for "ay," as in "day,or for "ah," as in "hurrah.' The Yankee peculiarity, also, of leaving off the sound of "r" where it belongs, and putting it on where it does not belong, like saying "wo'k" for "work," or "Mariar" for "Mariah," has very materially changed the original pronunciation. With us, too, the pronunciation of the vowels follows a fashion, and varies from time to time according to what particular "phobia" or "mania' ' we may happen to be cultivating. At present the prevailing Anglomania is probably affecting our speech as well as our fashions and politics. An Indian name, therefore, that might have been rendered into very good English fifty years ago, may now, having become subject to the mutations of our fads of pronunciation, be spoken quite differently from the original tongue.

But, after making all these allowances, due to our white man's egotism, ignorance and change of fashions, the main difficulty is in the strangeness, and, it might be said, the rudimentariness of the Indian sounds. Many, perhaps the most, of the aboriginal tones have no exact phonetic equivalent in English. We must remember that their names were originated away back in their own history, and were not affected by contact with Europeans, and have therefore a primitive quality not found even in the Jargon. This makes them more difficult, but certainly not less interesting.

In general it will be found, I think, that the aboriginal languages have the following peculiarities of pronunciation:

1. Almost all the sounds are pronounced farther back