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[p. 143]
INTRODUCTION
These texts vary considerably in their value as material for the study of the dialect of the San Carlos. The difficulties encountered in transcribing an unwritten language with sufficient phonetic accuracy to be reliable for deductions and comparison are considerable. The Indian dictating is often slovenly in his articulation, but chiefly the recorder is called upon to hear with exactness sounds to which his ear is unaccustomed and to make distinctions which he has habitually ignored. In the material here presented the nasalized vowels have suffered particularly. They are of as much importance as any other of the sounds and probably are consistently used by all Apache speakers. It is fairly safe to accept as nasalized all vowels so marked and to assume that the vowels in the same words and under similar conditions are also nasalized even when not so marked. The same valuation as to the presence or absence of marks indicating glottal stops and glottalized vowels should be employed.
The texts taken from Albert Evans, which are placed first in this paper, are probably more accurately recorded than the remainder of the texts and they are also fairly well translated. Of these taken from Antonio, The Deer Woman, on page 290, is better than the texts recorded from him in 1910. The larger part of the material secured in 1905 has been included notwithstanding its imperfections, since as large and varied a vocabulary as possible is to be desired.
The English renderings are those given by the Indians, except where the context or the etymology of the words in the texts plainly indicated a different meaning.
The alphabet employed is that devised by the Committee of the American Anthropological Association and published in Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Vol. 66, No. 6. It should be noted however that b and d are intermediate in sonancy while g is fully sonant. The back intermediate is represented by G.
PLINY EARLE GODDARD.
May, 1919.
[p. 143]
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