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20
The Bible Society'a conclusion is stated "" follows:
All the material presentad, including soae sent Bíter the conference,
has been read and raread I!Bny tilll!s and every point carefully weighed. The
conclusion adoptad is reached for the following reasons:
(1)
The initial letter "h" in Spanish is silent. To use it for the velar
fricativa even when weak or even for the weaker glottel apirant (e.g.
English "h") is to give the letter "h" a eound value and therefore to
cause confusion (a) to the Indian when he transfers from QuechU!I to
Spanish for he will sound the "h" in Spanish and (b) to the Spanish
epeaker for he will tend to silence an initial
''h"
in Quechua. This
seems needless and is just the type of confusion the inevitable inter–
relations of the languages and cultures make it desirable to avoid.
It is significant that Sr. Palacios etated (Conference Record, p. 11.)
"The Brigada de Culturimti6n of Peru found
1t
neceseary to use
11
j
11
inetead of
11
h
11
,
one reason being that children who learn
11
h
11
with a
sound value in qwchua ineist on reading it with the eame sound value
in Spanieh •••• He favored using
11
j
0
to represent the initial eound
whether it be the soft /h/ (English) or a eound more like the Spanish
/J/·"
(2) The initial
11
j
11
makes substantially consistent the apelling in Cuzco
Quechua and Spanish and in the other Quechua dialecto of words in–
evitably common to both languages, as the Biblical proper nemes and
other words.
If
11
h
11
is adoptad theee words must ei ther be apellad
inconsistently and therefore confusingly in Quechua, or if apellad
with
11
h
11
would cause the person first literate in
~echua
to sound
the "h" in Spenish words new to him or stumble when he found them
apellad with
11
J"
in Spanish.
(3)
The initial appears to us to be linked clearly with the medial and
final. Quoting Dr. Pike
11
to be linked under Premise One, eounde must
be (a) similar, and (b) occurring in different kinde of placee, not
the eame kind of placea.
(They must be "mutually exclusive.") The
ini tial and the medial-final {h.) and {j} are similar because:
both are voiceless
both have oral breath ralease
both are "breathy" (so"" type of mild or strong friction)
both lack any friction of a strong type far front in
the mouth (altllough the initial {h} before
~u}
has a bit at the lips)
both even have velar friction at times (i.e. the
tJ}
is
prectically aluays a strong velar fricativa in
Cuzco and Bolivia, while the thing callad
11
h" is ouly
sometimes a real phonetic "h" but at other ti""s is a
weak velar fricative, i.e. a weak
11
j
11
of weak
Spenish-liks type .•
"""•:::n:-r-.-P=ik:-e-d::-e-:ta-:-oi-::1-s--.,.th:-::-i-s-f::-urther:
11
There are in the main problem four sounds;
tbree moet frequent:
1)
11
glotte:l spirantn, i.e.
11
voiceless vowel
11 •
2) "pharyngaal fricativa", with a bit of scrape
deep in throat: occurs rarely, but ase previous descriptions.
3)
11
week velar fricativa", occurring sornetimes ini tielly.
4) •strong velar fricativa" occurring medially. Now
numbere 1 and 3 are in free variation one with another (and also so is number
2, but 1111ch more rarely). Then both 1 and 3 (the
11
weak
11
varieties) are limitad
to initial posi tion, whereas the strong variety can occur medially; in other
worda, both 1 and 3 are mutually exclusive with 4, since four does not come
where they do.
1 and 3 uni te under Premisa Two,
then both join 4 under
Premisa One."