BOAS] HANDBOOK OF AMEEICAN INDIAN LANGUAGES 213 



absence of Jc sounds as first sounds of clusters, since these do not 

 occur as terminal sounds. 



§ 4. Dialectic Differences 



Compared with the Skidegate dialect, Masset appears to have 

 undergone a shortening process throughout. I have already men- 

 tioned the change of g and a; to ^ and ^; and this shortening is also 

 conspicuously noticeable among vowel-sounds, a appearing as a, Jiao 

 as u, stA or sta as st' , while the u and a sounds generally, especially 

 when terminal, are reduced to very light breathings. The vowel- 

 combination ai becomes almost e. Sometimes, however, one vowel is 

 changed into another, as in stin two (Masset stAn) or u'ngu on top 

 OF (Masset i'ngu). In conformity with a euphonic tendency to be 

 noted below, n, as in i'sih, often changes to n in Masset. Occasion- 

 ally, too, whole syllables are dropped, and so we have qaod for 

 qa'odi; V.dl and dal for tlalA'h and dalA'h; l^Llade for I'Llxagidasgai. 



Another difference between these two dialects, related to the ques- 

 tion of euphony, is the change of g into x in certain situations in the 

 Skidegate dialect, and its retention in Masset. Thus d'djgua over 

 THERE in Masset becomes d'djxua in Skidegate, and V qd'gals he 

 WENT OUT becomes Ia gd'xuls. This is interesting as seeming to 

 show that the euphonic tendencies have acted differently in the two 

 branches of the Haida tribe. 



All that is known of the peculiarities of the Ninstints dialect is 

 that it tended to substitute Tc for g, and that in the manner of its 

 enunciation it was esteemed by the other Haida to resemble Atha- 

 pascan. 



§ 5. Laws of Euphony 



The most important euphonic change in Haida is related to that 

 spoken of above. Within the Skidegate dialect itself the g and g of 

 the connective particle ga-i (see p. 262), the possessive suffix -gAn (see 

 § 28.4), and the past-temporal suffixes before the quotative WAnsu'ga 

 (see § 23.1), are dropped in certain situations, generally having to do 

 with the preceding sound. It is not possible to make rules that will 

 cover all the cases which occur, but it generally happens that g is 

 retained after a and dropped after u. After the consonants and 

 the remaining vowels it is more often dropped than retained; but 

 exceptions are numerous, especially after i, n, the Z-sounds, and s 



§§4,5 



