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syllable-1nitial """ a o in fwas1/; but there are differenceo, namely,
that the syllable-f1nal
/-w/
could be wr1tten by a single "u",
whereas the initial one would have had to be written as "hu-".
In
the tests with eemi-literates, in whioh both were tried, post–
ayllabic
"w"
causad considerable difficulty, often being confueed
with
11
m", whereas post-syllabic •u• rt'!)resenting a non-eyllabic waa
underetood much more readily.
11
Granted then that "w" ie to be used to represent the eyllable–
initial eound, the advantage of using i t alBo for the eyllable-final
variant is above all linguisoic consiatenoy, whereas the advantege
of ueing
11
u
11
for the sound in that position io that it would BBVe
the
mult1plication of the rather unfamiliar letter
11
w
11
and would eub–
stitute the letter "u" which would cause but little difficulty to
one who read Spanish. The :Sible Soc1ety should choose the
11
-u• for
ita preeent publicationa
1f
it wishea to make the easiest possible
immed1ate transfer for the semi-literates who read Spanish, but the
""" if it feels
1t
should prefer to have linguiotic consietency, and
if it decides to teke the risk that the use of "-w" would not
prejudice readers accustomsd to Spenish in such a way that it would
suffer more by lose of approval than it would gain by consistency.
In
any case, the deo1a1on doee not appear to be a crucial one.•
The fa1rly even division of opinion in the Conference
1s
noted,as
ia the Record of the diacuesion which aeeme somewbat to favor
"-•"•
It seeme best on the whole to ma1ntain the coneistent representetion
of the linguistic etructure by the use of "-""•
and u and the variante e and o
Dr. Pike reporta: "ll'ith a few except1ons, all dialecto of
~echua
have only three vowel phonemee.
The non-significant variante how–
ever are very many. With one exception all of the missionaries with
whom I etudied agresd to thie analysio.
In Ecuador the three basic
vowele have a great deRl of free variation as defined under Premisa
Two, so that one minute a vowel might be pronouncad as
{i~
and a
momant later as
~iYj
that ia, a vowel lowered in tongue poeition
toward
~·~
or
~eAj
or even
{e}.
Likewise
fu/
would vary from moment
to moment from
~u}
to
tu"~
to to'j to to}, This variation occure
aleo in the Spanish loane. Even when bi-linguals speak Spanish, tha
aame variation occurs in the Spanish vowels so that someti..,s the
vowels are pronounced correctly and at other times the eame word is
given the vowel in reveree: --so IIIUCh so that one missionary (in
considerable hyperbole) sa1d to me that the Indiana bad a pern1cione
habit of reversing their vowels all tha tims.
On~
very br1111ant
b1-11ngual said tome
11
Se,
oe, aeñor,
11
for
11
SÍ. at, eeñor
11 ,
and
"dele"for "dile".
In southern Peru, :SOlivia and the J.yoara the sams
situation prevails, so that achool-teachero consistently say that
they have extreme difficulty in teaching the students the difference
between /i/ and
fef,
and
/uf
and /o/-- that the nativas cannot hear
thfl_
diatinguiohing features between them.
"In 110uthern PeJ\1 and :Solivia the Quechua and J.yoara have certain
back ooneonants, fq/
1
fqh/,
f
q
1/,
which tend to allow only the lower
varianta of the Phonemes/1/ and
/uf
next to
the~~>
so that ona heara