235 



trace of an original uvular. They are the words for eye and 

 hand. 



WGr. [§•] is-e — L. [j] г je 



» [ç'J aç'ak^ plur. aç'a'4 — » [^'] aggah 



These words are thus spelled by Paul Egede in his Greenlandic 

 Dictionary from 1750: irse eye, and arkseit^ hand, lingers. 



In Frobisher's list of words from Meta incognita (Baffins 

 Land), where he was in 1576, these words are found in the 

 forms: arered, eye — argoteyt, hand (or rather: thine eye — thy 

 hand). 



This manner of spelling these words is scarcely accidental. 

 Egede uses it in still more words; in all of them the case is 

 the same: in Greenlandic and in the Labrador dialect, the 

 uvular has now disappeared, but it is still found in the 

 westernmost dialects. 



Gr. is-e (1750 irse) eye — L. г je — JVl. i-yik — NAl. idin 

 and i^ddrûn — NW Al. ite view; e^'it eye; e^gra eye of a 

 needle — SW Al. iq'ka my eye ; ë^ka or ëq^ka my eyes — 

 Sib. e'ye eye 



Gr. aç-ak, plur. aç'ci'H (1750 arkseit) fingers — L. aggah 

 M. adjipapk — NAl. àdrigai his hand — INWAl. ahregife — 

 SWAl. attrilnok the ring-finger 



In all the Alaska dialects, then, there are forms containing 

 the uvular sound in the word-stem itself. It seems to me to 

 be highly probable that in the old East Eskimo forms that 

 have been preserved by Egede and Frobisher, we have a 

 reminiscence of this sound, but with an indication that here in 

 the east metathesis has taken place, while the original com- 

 bination of the consonants is preserved in the westernmost 

 districts. 



The Mackenzie dialect is partly connected with the East 

 Eskimo dialects, partly — and most closely — with the Alaska 



