20 BUEEAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 40 



All sounds produced by vibrations in any part of the articulating 

 organs other than the vocal chords are consonants. These vibra- 

 tions may be produced either by closing the air-passages com- 

 pletely and then suddenly opening the closure, or by producing 

 a narrowing or stricture at any point. The former series of sounds 

 are called "stops" (like our p, t, Ic). In all of these there is a com- 

 plete closure before the air is expelled. The latter are called "spi- 

 rants " or " continued " (like our s and/), in which there is a continu- 

 ous escape of breath. When a stop is made and is followed by a 

 breathing through a stricture at the same place, sounds develop like 

 our ts. These are called " affricatives." When the mouth is com- 

 pletely stopped, and the air escapes through the nose, the sound is 

 called a "nasal consonant" (like our m and n). There may also be 

 stricture and nasal opening. A rapidly repeated series of stops, a 

 trill, is represented by our r. The character of the sound depends 

 largely upon the parts of the articulating organs that produce the 

 closure or stricture, and upon the place where these occur. Closure 

 or stricture may b6 made by the lips, lips and tongue, lips and 

 teeth, tongue and teeth, tongue and hard palate, tongue and soft 

 palate (velum), by the vocal chords, and in the nose. 



In the follomng table, only the principal groups of consonants are 

 described. Rare sounds are omitted. According to what has been 

 said before, it will be recognized that here also the total number of 

 possible sounds is infinitely large. 



Bilabial stop p 



Linguo-palatal stops: 



Apical (dental, alveolar, post-alveolar) . . . t 

 Cerebral (produced with the tip of the tongue 



turned backward) t 



Dorsal : 



Anterior palatal k' 



Medial k 



Velar q 



Glottal (a stop produced with the vocal chords) . . ^ 



Nasal N 



Almost all these stops may be modified by giving to the closure 

 a different degree of stress. In English we have two principal de- 

 grees of stress, represented, for instance, by our h and p or d and t. 

 In many languages, as, for instance, in Sioux and in the languages 

 of the Pacific coast, there are three degrees of stress that may be 



