265 



with those living farthest north (in the Oommannaq District 

 and perhaps somewhat farther south), which may perhaps ex- 

 plain some peculiarities in the Middle Greenlandic dialect, for 

 example ^ and t- where S Gr. has g and fe, г or î2 between 

 two vowels, which is used by the population around the Oom- 

 mannaq Fjord where the West Greenlanders farther south use 

 unnasalized r, and in the dialect of the Upernawik Eskimo 

 themselves, the s-sounds instead of the original ; and tj. 



That metathesis which took place in the joint period of 

 the East Eskimo group must needs belong to the prehistoric 

 times of the Eskimo race. So from a linguistic standpoint it 

 is impossible to locate exactly the home of this main group, 

 even if we may presume that it lay somewhere along the Arctic 

 coasts of America; all that can be said is that two Eskimo 

 groups have moved in such a way in relation to each other 

 that the one has settled down farther west (the one that has 

 kept the language at its earliest stage of development) , the 

 other farther east (the one whose language is strongly affected 

 by assimilation). 



I shall now give a survey of some of the examples of the 

 metathesis and the retrogressive uvularization in their genetical 

 relations to each other. Those sounds or pairs of sounds 

 that are not marked with an asterisk have been supplied with 

 examples in the course of the preceding investigations. 



Old Eskimo ''tjr, Ir, tq 



*rtj, Ir, tq 



îiX\.tjr,lr,tq M.j,lr,tq 



West Eskimo 

 (present language) 



- (rq), rq L. j,p(or/), rq SGr. s, rk, rq 



Central Eskimo East Eskimo 



(present lanfiuiige) (present language) 



