Transcription

00:09 – “S”, just like the english S, [Sahaptin].

00:20 – [Sahaptin] The next letter is the “SH” [Sahaptin]. The next letter is a “soft T”, [Sahaptin]. The next word is “Hard T” and it has the glottal after it and this is a click clicked word, [Sahaptin], you click it between your teeth, close your teeth and put your tongue behind your teeth and say the “T”, see? [Sahaptin].

1:44 – The next letter is a “soft T barred L”, “soft T barred L”. [Sahaptin]. You say the “T” and you say the “barred L” you have to say the letters together, [Sahaptin]. Don’t forget to make it sound like a “barred L”. Now the other letter that is similar but just a little different you flatten your tongue at the roof of your mouth when you blow the air out of your mouth to make this sound and its different from [Sahaptin], you open your mouth wide after you make the “TL” sound, [Sahaptin], you open your mouth wide. The other one, see, you [Sahaptin], keep closed tight all the muscles in your throat, your mouth is tense. This way you relax the muscles in your mouth and you open your mouth when you say it, [Sahaptin].

3:24 – The next sound is a “soft TS” [Sahaptin]. The next letter is a “hard TS”. The “hard TS” is again made with your teeth clenched. [Sahaptin]. You say the “TS” sound together but you blow it through your clenched teeth, [Sahaptin], and after you say the “TS” you open your teeth, [Sahaptin], see? [Sahaptin]. The “short U” is made like the English double o, [Sahaptin]. The “long U” is of course lengthened, [Sahaptin]. Now in the Indian language, in Sahaptin, you have to pronounce every letter, we don’t do like the English when there’s a double letter we just make one sound we have to pronounce both letters, like a “double T” you see here, you have to say [Sahaptin]. You don’t say [Sahaptin]. That means something else, you have to say the first and second T. [Sahaptin]. Then we have the “W”, which is easy to pronounce. [Sahaptin]. You just need to know where to put your accent and the accent here is on the second “short A”, if you say [Sahaptin] it won’t mean ‘mosquito’, you have to say [Sahaptin]. Same way with [Sahaptin], you have to say [Sahaptin], you don’t say [Sahaptin], that has altogether a different meaning. [Sahaptin] means ‘late’. Making your accents is very important, [Sahaptin], means ‘jackrabbit’. If you say [Sahaptin], it means something else in another dialect, it means ‘left behind’. [Sahaptin] means ‘jackrabbit’ in our area here. Then we have the “front X”. The “front X” is a soft sounding hissing sound, you tighten the way back of your throat when you make this sound and I always imagine a cat, you know, when a cat gets mad and they hump their back and they make this sound [Sahaptin]. See? [Sahaptin]. Of course you don’t say it as loud as a cat, you kind of soften it. [Sahaptin]. See it’s a voiced word where the air is coming out of your throat, there’s hardly any obstructions except when you tighten a little bit to make that “X” come through. Don’t say [Sahaptin], say [Sahaptin]. It has a different definition. “Back X” is way back in your throat and it’s a guttural sound. [Sahaptin], there’s supposed to be an underline here on the first “X” and the typist did not put this in. [Sahaptin]. Both of them are “back X’”s. [Sahaptin]. Then we have the “front XW”, [Sahaptin]. Again, it’s a soft sound, [Sahaptin]. Then we have the “back XW”, [Sahaptin].

8:49 – Then there’s the “Y”, [Sahaptin]. The thirty ninth letter in our alphabet is the glottal stop. It’s a very important letter as you have noticed in our hard and soft sounds. It identifies the soft sounds like the “hard TS” and the “TL”, so here we have two vowels,  and it has a glottal in the center. If we had just two vowels together that would be a “long A” sound, aaah. But we have a glottal between the two “short A’”s that separates the sound, [Sahaptin]. That means ‘crow’. Then we have the “AY diphthong glottal AY diphthong”. [Sahaptin]. Two different sounds. If it was together without the glottal, [Sahaptin], that would define a ‘small fish’ in another dialect, but when it’s separated by a glottal stop it has two separate sounds, [Sahaptin], ‘magpie’ . [Sahaptin], if it didn’t have a glottal it wouldn’t mean anything. Because we don’t spell with three “U”’s. So there that [Sahaptin] is a separate sound from the [Sahaptin] is separated by the “barred L”, that means ‘the state of being blind’. So that’s why the glottal stop in our alphabet is very important.

11:07 – Now we have the “AY diphthongs”. You know I’ll explain what diphthongs are. There are eight diphthongs in our language. A diphthong is a combination with a “Y” or a “W”.  The “short AY” diphthong has an ay sound [Sahaptin], maybe. The “long AY diphthong” has a long sound, [Sahaptin]. The “short UI” [Sahaptin], just like “OI” in English. [Sahaptin], and then we have the “long UI”, [Sahaptin], The “short AW diphthong”, [Sahaptin], it has an OW sound in English. [Sahaptin]. The “long AW diphthong”, [Sahaptin]. See the difference between [Sahaptin] and [Sahaptin]? They mean two different things so It’s very important that you pronounce your diphthongs correctly. [Sahaptin], [Sahaptin] means ‘mountain goat’. The “short IW diphthong” has a short sound, [Sahaptin]. The “long IW diphthong” has a long sound, [Sahaptin]. So that concludes the introduction to the Yakama Practical Alphabet. And I would like to say a few words about the spelling of Yakama. I don’t know who started this Yakama stuff. That’s not the correct way to say this tribes title. Originally we were called Yakima. Then the Indians, when they said it, white people couldn’t spell it so they came up with [Sahaptin], it’s pretty close to the original Yakima word. It depends on you if you want to spell it Yakama it’s up to you. But I’m spelling it with an I, and that’s my own choice. So it’s up to you if you want to write it Yakama, I just wanted to explain this on this tape. I hope that it well help you. In reviewing my recording, I find that I have passed up one letter, and this is a pretty important, it’s right after the soft back K – (tape cuts off)