47 / 70
22
Mr. and Mra. H. Dudley Peck, translatora of the New Teotament into Mem,
a langusge of Guatemala, involving 118ny of the aame problema: "Thie
i8
a very
happy solution, demonstrating the value of a sound phonemic theory and ita
,POWer to overcome treditional inhibitions, and conventional theory. The
resiatance
to
the wide uoe of thia lettcr may arise in quarters within the
Society
1
o control, From tha teacher'• point of view, as well as tl"Bt of the
1111terate pupil, thia decieion facilitatea the learning prooess in \hat it
avoids the necesoity of explaining the diffsrent uses of "h" basad on poaition
in the syllabl e, In both lolam and Quich.!, we are acquaintsd with the variable
fricativa and
know
that the single symbol
"J -,
-j-,
or
-J"
csuses the newly
11terate no difficulty whatever in reading."
- q -
tor
the final back velar voioeleas fricativa
Dr. PikB writea: "In Ou•co there
1e
a baok velar fricativa which
mnat be diatinguiehld from the front velar fricativa, In Cuzco
the back velar friclltive occurs only at the end
of
ayllables. It
doe a not occur eylláble initial. Inaanuch
u
the back valer stop,
fqf,
occura only ayllable initial in Cuzco, it was deoided by the
Conference to uea the eama latter to rapresent a different phoneme
which occurs in a different poaition in the wcrd. This admitted
inconsistency was accepted a o being preferable to using italic
"j"
or double •
JJ"·
Thia waa partially supportad by the fact that the
neighboring dialeot of Chanka has an initial back velar fricativa
both initially and finally in eyllables, but words in which the
Chanka fricativa appeara ini tially are pronounced in Cuzco with
the etop, This meant that
1f
the Cuzco stop were spelled with /
qf,
as had already been decided upon, and the baok fricative in Chanka
were spelled
w1
th /
qf,
then the dialecto would appear
to
be more
similar by writing both of thase sounds wi th the eame letter than
they would
be
1f
different letters wero ueed. Furthermore, in
Chanka, aince the back velar fricativa is syllable final, the lettsr
fqf
wonld then appear there aleo. Once thia were ohosen to repre-
..nt the back velar fricativa of Chanka, ito extension to use in
Cu2co would aeem to be partially convenient evan though techni cally
inaccurate. In Quechua of :Bolivia only one velar fricativo occurs
at tha end of words and i t
1s
Unked phonemioally with the medial
/ J/,
so that it io best written always
11
J"
in :Bolivia. This
marks the chief difference phonemically between :Bolivia and Cuzco
namely, that two syllable-final velar fricatives are differentiated
in
Cuzco, whereas only ene occura in :Bolivia.
Á
dialectical dif–
ferenca between Chanka and :Bolivia oan aleo be notad, in tha\ while
Chanka likewise has jnst one syllable-final valar fricativa, the
Chanka ene
1s
phonemioally united with its initial back valar
fricativa, whereas in :Bolivia the aound, although phonetically made
oomewhat far back on the velum,
is
in the aame oound unit with medial
(or front) velar fricativa (written
"J"),
The picture
1o
further
complicated by data which I was not personally able to check, that
in
Puno as distinct from Cuzco the two valar fricatives are in
eignifioant phonemic contraat in ayllable-initial position with
numerous minimal different word paire to preve it, (Thie is in the
vioinity of the .lymara, which has thie contrast alao; in
.lY1J8r&
to
preserve thiB contrast they are wrlting
11
JJ"
for the initial and
final,) Thees spellinge are not completely satisfactory but could
only be changed for the better by adoption of intricate phonetic
~ola
which aeemed inappropriate for use at th1e time, •