Page:The Annals of the Cakchiquels.djvu/56

50 adopted for it an old form of the figure 4. It is a trilled palatal, between a hard c and k.

Ꜯ The name applied to this is, the cuatrillo con coma, or the 4 with a comma. It is pronounced somewhat like the c with the cedilla, ç, only more quickly and with greater force — ds or dz.

ꜩ This resembles the "4 with a comma," but is described as softer, the tongue being brought into contact with the teeth, exactly as tz in German.

Ꜭh A compound sound produced by combining the cuatrillo with a forcible aspirate, is represented by this sign.

Naturally, no description in words can convey a correct notion of these sounds. To learn them, one must hear them spoken by those to the manner-born.

Dr. Otto Stoll, who recently made a careful study of the Cakchiquel when in Guatemala, says of Parra's characters: —

"The four new signs added to the European alphabet, by some of the old writers on Cakchiquel (Parra, Flores), viz: Ꜫ, Ꜭ, Ꜯ, Ꜭh are but phonetic modifications of four corresponding signs of the common alphabet. So we get four pairs of sounds, namely: —

forming two series of consonants, the former of which represents the common letters, and the latter their respective "cut letters," which may be described as being pronounced with a shorter and more explosive sound than the corresponding