1889-90.] THE DENE LANGUAGES. 173 



Such is the case with kr and kr, save that the sound of the r in this 

 phonetic connpound is perceptible only for the natives and those who 

 may have made a specialty of the study of their language. Ts and tl 

 have the exploding sound and their value can hardly be taught otherwise 

 than viva voce. 



To the foregoing should be added the hiatus (•) which has the effect of 

 abruptly interrupting the pronunciation and slightly elevating the tone of 

 the syllable it follows. 



There is no accent in D^n^. 



Besides, the D^n^ dialects possess two genuine diphthongs ; an and ai 

 pronounced respectively as the German au and the English long i in such 

 words as " fire, mire," etc. A peculiarity of the language is that it avoids 

 the succession of two vocalic sounds with as much care as the Polynesian 

 idioms do the accumulation of consonants. Thus " Leo " is pronounced 

 " Leyo " and " Noah, Novvah " by our Indians. 



Among the consonants b and p, d and t, k and g are respectively un- 

 differentiated through the whole D^n^ linguistic group. They can be 

 interchanged without in the least affecting the sense of the word, whilst 

 / and q, p and v, ts and kiv or kfzv, ts and kiu are co-affin and transmut- 

 able from dialect to dialect and particularize the tribe to which the orator 

 belongs. The same remark applies, but in a broader sense, to the vowels 

 all of which admit of the possibility of being transmuted with another, 

 no matter how great its phonetical dissimilarity. This last peculiarity 

 will no doubt strike the comparative philologist as an important point of 

 resemblance between the D6n^ and the Semitic languages. Non-trans- 

 mutable consonants characterize the idiom and lexically differentiate it 

 from other mother tongues or linguistic families, while the vowels specify 

 the dialect and change from tribe to tribe. A {q\v examples will illus- 

 trate my meaning : — 



Man is kiat in Kitiksoi: or Abna (Skeena River idiom) and tcvne in 

 Carrier, the language of the Kitiksons' eastern neighbours. Beaver is 

 rendered by tsceniilliJi ; Canoe by inoel ; Rain by xvish in Kitikson, 

 while the Carriers use the words tsa, tsi^ and chan respectively to express 

 the same ideas. These terms being roots in both languages, the dissimi- 

 litude of their main constituent part, the consonants, suffices to immedi- 

 ately arouse in the mind of the philologist a suspicion of diversity of lan- 

 guage, which a prolonged investigation does not fail to confirm. 



Let us now examine the same root words in the various Den^ 

 dialects. 

 13 



