103 



Among 179 observations of the /"-sound in Greenlandic, I 

 found 55 times the bilabially neutral lip-position («*•), 65 times 

 the under lip bilabially drawn back under the upper lip toward 

 the teeth (a^), 59 times labiodental friction. 



It was scarcely a fourth of them that showed any slight 

 rounding or pouting of the lips", as in the following of the 

 above key-words ^' ^' *2' *^, often also in *' ^' ^' ^^' ^^' ^^. As a 

 rule the sound was produced by the air being breathed out 

 through a slit whose form corresponded to the p-closure, 

 and there was a predominant tendency to draw the under lip 

 somewhat back toward the teeth as in the case of our f. The 

 pure labiodental f occurred occasionally, especially 1) between 

 г -sounds or after r 2) among the mixed Danish-Eskimo in- 

 habitants. 



Before f, i and ii often seemed to be velarized, i. e. im- 

 mediately before (and during) the ^-sound, a loose g or ^ friction 

 takes place («2^ уЪ'"''^). Thus in is. i4, le. it 



The bilabial character of the Greenlandic f- and г5-sounds 

 is also evident from the fact that in the Upernavik dialect, 

 p, the bilabial stopped consonant, is consistently substituted 

 for \(p]. This fricative does not seem to occur at all in the 

 northernmost districts, where they say sarpaq for sarcpaq'^, 

 агрщ for аг(рщ-, oqarpjüicr for oqmytricv'^ etc. 



§ 12. The vowel -sys te m of the North Greenlandic 

 language is on the whole a reflexion of the consonant-system, 

 but it is far from being characterized by the same regularity. 



The vowel articulations are, as it were, more fluctuating 

 than the consonant articulations, which is due to the fact that 

 they are in so great a degree subject to influence from the 

 adjacent sounds. An intended a or e, о or ii has to have its 



' current ' \\hale ' he talks to him (tells him). 



