1000090429

at the beginning of a syllable, it is a voioed reflexed alveo-palatal

fricativa similar to the fricativa variant of Spanish single initial

or medial "rr". These variante however did not present particular

difficulty in using "r" for the symbol to represent them, since they

appaared to be all in tho sama phoneDll sound but with free variation

or conditioned variation ebout a COIII!lon base, which perhaps can be

most conveniently stated as being a voiced flap."

k - rather front velar unawirated stop

q - rather back velar or post-palatal unaspirated stop

The decision of the Conference on this point seems very sound

and a very clarifying one,

Dr. Pike reporte the problem as follows:

The most crucial of

au decisions on the alphabet which had to be reached was the repre–

sentation of the two velar stops. These two sounds were phonemically

in contrast in Cuzco, Bolivia, Chanka and Ancash, as is evidenced by

a multitude of word pairo in which these sounds made a difference in

meaning. The chief alternativas were:

"{a) that the front velar be representad b;y "e" before /a/ and

by "qU:-

before /i/ whereas the back velar would be repre–

sentad by "k". This system was in use in Bolivia both in

the

~uechua

and AyDl!Ifl, and in Peru for Ancash; in addition,

the cfqu- was usad in Ecuador and iri san Martin for the

single velar stop phoneDll which occurs.

{b) The second majbr possibility was to use "k" for the front

velar and "q" for tha back. This system was in use in

southern Peru. Both systams had advantages.

"System {a) was a closer representation of Spanish and

achieved better resulte in reading tests with semi-literatas

who had learned to read Spanish, since "c/qu-

was read

correctly and "k" was read approximately the same but fre–

quently corrected to the back velar, whereas in system {b)

"k" was frequently read correctly but the "q" was often

confused with "p" or "g". Inasmuch as the largar reading

public for some years to come will prasumably

those whc

have learned to read the Spani sh system, {a) has soma

advantages.

0n the other hand, alternativa {b) has an advantage for

those who are already

thorou~ly

terete and cultured be–

cause i t represents the innate structure of the language

better {by avoiding the writing of the first phoneme in two

separata ways,

that

is,

"qu-"

eometir:oos, and

ncn

other

times), In addition, the consistency of systam {b) lltlkeo

a much better basis for teaching beginners to read diractly

by the Laubach system. In addit ion, system {a) has the

difficulty that it leads to fUrther complications and

limitations, in that once granted system (a) is used, "h"

could not be ueed to indicate aspiration, since

as a