234 



Gr. L. SWAl. 



^0* r/iaç a spirit torngak tungh'alik 80гс&гег,оие 



who has a tundra 



pinHt straw in the perngit plnuc['kak grass dried 



boots for use in native boots 



кщогиа that which kingurnga kinggmmriqtöräkä I 



follows after some- go after him 



thing else , after 

 that, since 



kÎTiornup-ak'a I have kingormgutivaka kinggmmräqtörän^ä 

 inherited them I go in search of those 



(things) behind (i. e. lost ones) 



serni^a' protects him serngnigiva chinggnäq^kä I kiss 



him (embrace him » 



In these words the consonant-metathesis has necessitated 

 changes in the preceding vowel; when the two consonants 

 change places, the uvular consonant finds itself immediately 

 after the vowel, which then, according to the phonetical ten- 

 dencies in Greenlandic, is uvularized. We ohserve two stages 

 of vowel change : 



г > e >» e Al. nimra — Gr. mrma (its) lashing 

 «< !> >» Э » unm — » orwa (his) armpit 

 a > a > a » malriik — » ткгХик two 



Now it might he expected that this vowel-change could be 

 used as a criterion of historical-linguistic value. 



I shall try to show, however, that in certain series of 

 words, metathesis may have taken place, whereby an /• has 

 penetrated into the first syllable, yet without any trace of it to 

 be seen in the vowel, the /•, on the contrary, having entirely 

 disappeared and become assimilated with the neighboring con- 

 sonant. 



I think I am able to produce historical testimony from the 

 oldest records of the Greenlandic and Baffin languages to prove 

 that a metathesis of this kind has once taken place in two 

 words, which in the present language at Davis Strait show no 



