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19
different from the medial strong velar fricativa. Upon this
essumption, the msdial sound would be written with
11
j
11
,
inasmuch as
i t was very similar to the Spanish sound representad by that sign,
and the initial sound would be written "h". This opinion was sup–
ported in another minority report signad by three members of the
conference whose chief argument
IVBS
basadon the previous scholastic
use of
11
h
11
in technical publications su.ch as dictionaries, gramnars,
and the
like,
and the previous alphabet of the Ministry of Education
which proved impractical and was nevar put into service.
(Actually,
though, this was omitted from the minority report, and the educational
repreeentative at the conference registered a reversal of his opinion
in stating that his education publications had been forced to abandon
11
h
11
and use
11
j"
for practical considerat ions.) The second more im–
portant consideration was a reference to what futura linguists coming
on the field might do in the eltuation.
It is unfortunate that this
report does not discuss the phonemic analysie of the initial and
medial sounds, inasmuch as the action of any other linguist would be
highly colorad by his analysis of the technical relationships between
these sounds.
If they agreed
wi
th the anelysis of the Conference that
the two were
un1
ted into a single phoneme, then they would probably
write initial and medial sounde the same, whatever letters they might
choose,
They might choose to write
11
h
11
both ini tially and msdially
( ao that for example the word for
11
one" i s wri tten "huh" inatead of
11
juj
11
or
11
huj
1 ,
as was done
by
one prominent linguist writing on
Quechua for the semi-official Conaejo de Lenguas Indigenas, advisors
to the Inter American Indian Inetitute) or they might chooee to write
both sounds
wi
th "x
11
in which case the word for "one
11
would be wri tten
"xux
11
(becauae
11
x" in phonetic alphabets is frequently uaed to repre–
sent a voiceless velar fricativa, and
if
they were to choose to repre–
sent the medial fricativa,
1t
might be extended to represent the cUf–
ferent sound if in the phonemic analysis they were put together).
Certninly sorne linguists would object to the use of
"j"
in any place,
even med!Blly, when
it
representad a velar fricativa, because
11
j
11
is
used in international phonetic alphabets so frequently for English
"Y"
that they might not want t o depart from this practica.
11
A third argument presentad in the minority report was that "h" has
been adoptad t o write the aspiratad consonante, thus there is a
glaring inconsistency in writing
11
juj" end
11
phawey
11 ,
but the report
gives absolutely no supporting evidence to
link
the initial fricativa
wi th the aspiration of the stops. As was shown in the asrlier dio–
cussion, 8 stop plus an 8spiration is in Qllechua ,. single phonemic
unit, and as a single uni t
1t
cannot be an8lysed either technically
or pr8ct1c8lly into 8 separata stop followed by a aepar8te consonant
which 18tter would then be allegedly identical with an isolated
initial fricativa.
In fact, as was demonstrated above for Aymsr8,
the two cannot be writ ten with one symbol without causing considerable
amb1guity precisely because they are not identical phonemically.
"In summsry then, in spite of the minority reporta, I am convinced
that the judgment of the conference was sound in deciding to wri te
• J"
consistently both for initial and medial variants, feeling that
the immediate practical advantages overbalance the futura possibility
of changa."