306 BUREAU OP AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 40 



The Coos call their own language ha'Tiis Lle'yts the hanis tongue. 

 The present work deals with this dialect only, as sufficient material 

 could not be obtained for the purpose of writing a grammar of the 

 Miluk dialect. 



Texts of myths and tales were collected by Mr. H. H. St. Clair, 2d, 

 and by the author of the present sketch, and were published by Colum- 

 bia University.^ All references accompanying examples refer to page 

 and line of that publication. 



PHONOLOGY (§§2-14) 

 § 2. Vowels 



The phonetic system of Coos is rich and fully developed. Clusters 

 of consonants occur very frequently, but are void of difficult compli- 

 cations. The vowels show a high degree of variability, and occur in 

 short and long quantities. The obscure vowel e is very frequent, 

 and seems to be related to short e and a. Resonance vowels occur 

 very often, and are indicated in this work by superior vowels. The 

 diphthongs are quite variable. Long e is not a pure vowel, but glides 

 from e to l; it can hardly be distinguished from long % to which 

 it seems to be closely related. In the same manner long o glides 

 from to u^ and was heard often as a long 'w- vow el. 



The following may be said to be the Coos system of vowels and 

 diphthongs: 



Vowels Semi-vowels Diphthongs 



E 



a e { % u u If 5 y ^^\ ^"> ^" 



a a e 1 o u e^ d" 



Short e is pronounced like e in the English word helmet, while the 

 umlauted a corresponds to the open <$-vowel in German wahlen. It 

 very often occurs as the umlauted form of long a. % represents the 

 short 2/- vowel so commonly found in the Slavic languages; while 'Ci, 

 indicates exceedingly short, almost obscure u. 5 can not occur after 

 the palatal surd k and fortis kf. 



§ 3. Consonants 



The consonantic system of Coos is characterized by the prevalence 

 of the sounds of the k and I series, by the frequent occurrence of 



1 Coos Texts, Columbia University Contributions to Anthropology, vol. 1. 



§§2-3 ■ -.. . .. 



