12 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF INDIAN LANGUAGES. 
The aspirations described in a previous paragraph seem to be inter- 
mediate between true H’s and the exploded sounds as last described. In 
most Indian languages these peculiarities require careful study. 
SYNTHETIO SOUNDS. 
Much difficulty is sometimes occasioned by the indefinite character of 
some of the sounds of a language. 
In the Hidatsa there is a sound of such a character that the English 
student cannot decide to which of the sounds represented by b, w, or m, it 
is most nearly allied; and there is another which the student cannot dis- 
tinguish from /, n, r, or d; such sounds are not differentiated as they are in 
English. They are synthetic; that is, they are made by the organs of 
speech in positions and with movements comprehending in part at least the 
positions and movements used in making the several sounds to which they 
seem to be allied. Such a synthetic sound will be heard by the student 
now as one, now as another sound, even from the same speaker. Such 
sounds are very common in Indian tongues and occasion no little difficulty 
to collectors, but much trouble can be avoided by a proper understanding 
of their nature. The student will at first note that the same speaker 
repeating the word in which such a sound occurs over and over again will 
be heard in such a manner that he, as hearer, will suppose him to be con- 
stantly changing the sound from that represented by one, two or more 
letters to another of the same group, and when he himself attempts to pro- 
nounce the word the Indian is equally satisfied whichever of the sounds is 
employed. It is found in studying a group of Indian languages of the 
same stock that these sounds which are synthetic in one branch are some- 
times differentiated in another, so that if we have in the first branch a 
synthetic sound, in the second some words will employ one of the differen- 
tiated elements, some another, and the same will be true of a third branch 
where the sounds are found to be differentiated. On comparing the second 
and third branches of the language it will be found sometimes that in cor- 
responding words the same differentiated sound will appear; in other 
corresponding words different sounds will appear; and if the language in 
which the synthetic sounds are used were lost, the use of differentiated 
