Belle Deacon Texts

Previously published

Previously unpublished

Belle Deacon was a gifted Deg Xinag storyteller and all-around expert on Deg Xinag language and culture. Some of the stories here were published in Deacon 1987, now out of print. The format of the book was side by side pages of Deg Xinag sentences and their English translations. In the preface to that book, James Kari, who prepared the transcriptions and translations for that book, with assistance from other native speakers of Deg Xinag, noted that the stories included in that book represented only about 40% of those that had been recorded with Belle up to that point. In addition to transcribing and translating, Kari also recorded more stories from Belle. On this web site are slightly more detailed versions of the 1987 stories, including word glosses (translations), to make the basis for the English translations more transparent.

The transcription here generally reflects Belle Deacon's personal style of speech. For example, she pronounces the verbal reciprocal prefix as niɬ-, where other speakers would have niɬi-. The perambulative prefix for BD is usually q'i- but occasionally q'u-, whereas other speakers have q'u- exclusively. It should be noted that Belle normally says nuq'oɬanh `woman' instead of nuq'oɬonh, produced by other speakers. Also, Belle usually pronounces axaxiɬdik `then' (one speaker says this should really be xaxaxiɬdik) as axiɬdik. Those last two features of Belle's pronunciation could have been transcribed here but more standard forms were transcribed instead.

Like other speakers, words pronounced in isolation which end in t often lose this t when sentence-internal, and this is transcribed where it occurs. Word-final k also deletes to a lesser extent, especially on high frequency words like axaxiɬdik. Word-final i after voiced consonants is only written where it actually occurs.

BD often talks fast and is a special challenge to transcribe at those times. () supplies consonants and vowels which BD apparently omitted due to her fast rate of speech but which native listeners feel should be there.

False starts by BD are indicated with ---. These are included in the transcription so that when listeners compare the audio to the transcription they need not puzzle over the meaning of sounds they hear which were not part of the intended story.

Sounds which do not appear to be a false start but which native listeners could not decipher are marked with ***. Fortunately there are not many such instances.

? is provided as the translation of words which native listeners were not sure about. The all-purpose subordinator/coordinator ts'in'/ts'i is generally not translated, nor is a/at, elsewhere a focus(?) marker, but often found in wh- questions and relative clauses.

Deacon, Belle. 1987. Engithidong Xugixudhoy: Their Stories of Long Ago. Fairbanks: Alaska Native Language Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks.