MASON, TEPECANO, A PIM.W LANGUAGE OF MEXICO in- 

 most and the northernmost members of the group, appear to be more 

 closely related than the Tepecano and Huichol, adjacent tongues. 



The material for the present sketch was secured in Azqueltan 

 during a stav of five months in the winters of 1911 — -1912 and 

 1912 — 1913 while I was Fellow from the University of Pennsyl- 

 vania to the International School of Mexican Anthropology. While 

 the study of the language was the principal object of the expedition, 

 yet the greater portion of the linguistic data consists of a number 

 of native prayers in text which it is hoped to publish soon as part 

 of a study of the religion. A few mvthological texts were taken 

 and these are appended to this sketch for purposes of illustration. 



PHONOLOGY 



GENERAL ( JHARACTERISTICS 



The Tepecano language gives quite a pleasant acoustic effect to 

 the ear accustomed to English. Portis and velar sounds are missing, 

 as is marked aspiration; affricatives are rare and consonantal com- 

 binations simple. Glottal stops are frequent but not abrupt. The 

 sounds are clear-cut and generally easily distinguishable. Quantity. 

 both vocalic and consonantal, is marked, so that the acoustic effect 

 received approaches that of a telegraph instrument, a low-toned 

 flow with constant hesitations. Stress accent is probably uegligable 

 and pitch accent is scarcely noticeable in continued speech. 



I in JLIi SI stem 



The normal vowels of Tepecano appear to be a. /', o, u. <">. </ is 

 probably the most frequent vowel, e is occasionally but very rarely 

 heard and appears to be of secondary derivation, frequently by assi- 

 milation from the diphthong in. as aviam or avem. "' i and o need 



10 The vowel e is missing also in Lower Pima (BUCKINGHAM Smith-. "Grammar of the 

 Pima or Nevome". Shea's Lib. Am. Ling., New York, 1862; digest in I'imentel, op. cit.) 

 and Papago (Juan Dolores: "Papago Verb Stems", Univ. Cal. Pub. Am. Arch. Eth., 

 vol. 10, no. 5. Berkeley, 1913). It is probably larking also ill the other members of 

 this linguistic subgroup, viz.., Upper Pima and Northern and Southern Tepchuaue. While 

 given in Russell's phonetic table for the Upper Pima (FRANK Russell: "The Pima In- 

 dians". XXVI Ann. Rep. Bur. Am. Eth. Washington. 1908) a rapid inspection of pages 

 of text fails to reveal a single example of e; it is almost equally rare in Lumholtz's 

 vocabularies from the Tepehuane (op. ciL). Rinaldini (op. cit.) uses e considerably in his 

 Tepehnane grammar but there must be a natural suspicion that the sound is lacking 



