564 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY tBULL- 40 



The grammar of the Chinook language has been discussed by- 

 Horatio Hale/ Friederich Miiller/ Franz Boas/ John R. Swanton/ 

 and Edward Sapir.'^ 



Unless otherwise stated, references in the following sketch refer to 

 page and hne in Franz Boas, Chinook Texts. 



PHONETICS (§§ 2-13) 

 § 2. Vowels 



The. phonetic system of Chinook is characterized by a super- 

 abundance of consonants and consonant-clusters combined with great 

 variability of vowels. Since practically all our information on the 

 Lower Chinook has been derived from one single individual, the last 

 survivor capable of giving intelligent information, there remain many 

 uncertainties in regard to the system of sounds. My informant was 

 in the habit of changing the position of the lips very slightly only. 

 There was, particularly, no strong forward movement of the lips in 

 the vowel u and the semivowel w. This tendency has been observed 

 in many Indian languages and was probably characteristic of all 

 Chinook speakers. For this reason the ;/ and o sounds are very 

 slightly differentiated. Obscure vowels are frequent and seem to be 

 related to all long and short vowels. 



The system of vowels and semivowels may be written as follows : 



While the o and u sounds are indistinct, owing to the similarity of 

 lip-positions, the e and i sounds seemingly alternate in accordance 

 with the character of the adjoining sounds. They assume a decided 

 i tinge by contact with a following a, or when following an anterior 

 palatal. There is no strong retraction of the lips, but a considerable 



1 Wilkes Expedition, Ethnography and Philology, 562-564. See also Tnrmctions of the American Eth- 

 nological Society, n, xxiii-clxxxviii; Hale's Indians of Northwest America and Vocabularies of North 

 America; with an Introduction hy Albert Gallatin. 



2 Grundriss der Sprachwissenschaft, n, 254-250. Vienna, 1882. 



3 Notes on the Chinook Language, American Anthropologist, 55-63, 1893; Chinook Texts, Bulletin SO of 

 the Bureau of A merican Ethnology, 1894; Kathlamet Texts, Bulletin 26 of the Bureau of A merican Ethnology, 

 1901; The Vocabulary of the Chinook Language, A merican Anthropologist, n. s., vi, 118-147, 1904. 



< Morphology of the Chinook Verb, American Anthropologist, n. s., n, 199-237, 1900. 

 ' Preliminary Report on the Language and Mythology of the Upper Chinook, A merican Anthropologist, 

 n. s., IX, 533-544; Wishram Texts, Publications of the American Ethnological Society, II, 1909. 



§2 



