14 BUEEAU OF AMEEICAlSr ETHNOLOGY [bull. 40 



The is a close vowel, as in German sohn, as far as the quality is 

 concerned, but with the short quantity of the o of voll. This close- 

 ness of pronunciation of the o readily explains its very frequent 

 interchange with u: 



Us'Io'p'al sharp-clawed 

 dets'luguY sharp-pointed 



and also the u- quality of the parasitic element in the long close vowel 

 d'^. The short open 6, as in German voll, never occurs as a primary 

 vowel, but is practically always a labialized variant of a. Thus in 

 Takelma, contrary to the parallelism one ordinarily expects to find in 

 vocalic systems, e- vowels are open in quaUty, while o- vowels are 

 close. 



The vowel u is close, as in the English word rude, the long mark 

 over the u being here used to indicate closeness of quality rather 

 than length of quantity. The u is not identical with the German u, 

 but is somewhat more obscure in quality and wavers (to an un- 

 Indian ear) between the German short u of mittze and u of muss ; 

 sometimes it was even heard with the approximate quality of the 

 short of GOTZ. The long -ii" is, in the same way, not exactly 

 equivalent to the long ii of the German suss, but tends in the direc- 

 tion of u'^, with which it frequently varies in the texts. It is some- 

 what doubtful how far the two vowels u and il are to be considered 

 separate and distinct ; it is quite possible that they should be looked 

 upon as auditory variants of one sound. Before or after y or w, il is 



apt to be heard as u, Tcluwu'^ they ran away, uyu'^s' he 



LAUGHED, Igmjugl'^si, he keeps nudging me, otherwise often as u. 



The only short vowel not provided for in the table is -^ (as in Eng- 

 lish sun), which, however, has no separate individuality of its own, 

 but is simply a variant form of a, heard chiefly before m: 



lie^Hle'Tne^xilm he killed us off (for -am) 

 xilm in water . (for xam) 



The absence of the obscure vowel e of indeterminate quality is 

 noteworthy as showing indirectly the clear-cut vocalic character of 

 Takelma speech. Only in a very few cases was the e heard, and in 

 the majority of these it was not a reduced vowel, but an intrusive 

 sound between m and s: 



dak'fhe'^'VfbagamES he tied his hair up into top-lvnot (in place 

 of -aras). 

 § 4 



