1870.] '^^^ [Brinton. 



I i e as i in marine, and short as i iu pin. 



Kk ke 



LI le 



M m me 



N n ne 



O o o as in note. 



P p pe 



S s se 



Sh sh she 



TJ u GO as in took, or n as in fnll. 



W w we 



Y y ye. 

 Wasals : 5, o^ y, i. 



2. REMARKS ON THE ALPHABET. 



The vowel v has heretofore been called u short. But the Choctaws 

 give it the sound of a short, and when lengthened it passes into a long ; 

 as, vbi, to kill ; abi, to kill. 



HI, hi, is an aspirated 1, when at the beginning of a syllable ; when it 

 closes a syllable, it is Ih ; as, hlibata, a buckskin thong ; tulhko, buck- 

 skin leather. 



H, h, has two sounds, one a smooth aspirate, as in hina, a road ; the 

 other rough, as in tahli, to finish. 



K, k, has two sounds, one sharp, as in oka, water ; the other rough, as 

 in the article-pronoun okvt, oke. In order to express the sound fully, the 

 latter might be spelled okhvt, okhe. 



The vowels have the continental sounds. 



The diphthongs are: ai, pronounced as i in pine; and au, as ow in now. 



3. THE NASALS. 



These are not represented by independent letters, but by a line drawn 

 under the vowels, thus : g,, i, o, u, pronounced ang, ing, ong, ung, with 

 slight variations depending upon the next succeeding consonant. 



V nasalized, passes into a. 



e " " " i. 



ai " " " c^y, as falaiya, to be long, falaya, being long. 



au " " " ;j.w, as laua, to be many, lawa, being many. 



The nasal sounds increase the distinctive power of the words in which 

 they occur. For instance, the article-pronouns a, definite and o distinc- 

 tive are made more definite and distinctive by the nasal mark. This is 

 also true of adverbs of affirmation and negation ; verbs and adverbs take 

 the nasals as intensives ; §,, yes it is ; h^, no it is not ; keyu, no it is not ; 

 chito, large ; chito, being large, the large one. The nasal sound implies 

 emphasis, and distinctiveness by comparison. 



4. SOUNDS WANTING. 



The consonants c, d, g, j, q, r, v, x, and z, are absent in Choctaw. 

 Double consonants, such as br, dr, tl, bt, nt, st, arc of difficult articula- 



