Language and Folklore. 153 
Ammassalik Sermilik 
iloquta: — tiniwa | 1. his liver 
awpaluto'ta® — » 2. yolk of an egg 
perqitån:a'in — ujarpatain shrimps (or crayfish) 
ilima‘wa — narliwa 
NL : embryo, fetus 
(earlier il'a' wa) 
aa ma'iän — man'ikil Wa iän testicles 
In several cases the people of Sermilik seem to have preferred an 
-r- or -r- where those of Ammassalik pronounce an 1, e.g. ajara 
instead of ajana ‘my aunt’ (mother’s sister). 
$ 77. The poetical language. — Besides the dialect words we 
must take into account special words and designations that only be- 
long to: the poetical language or the sacred language of the pagan 
priests, or words replacing those forbidden by taboo. 
To the language in the Eskimo poems from East Greenland very 
nearly the same observations apply as those which D. G. BRINTON 
made when translating the ancient Nahuatl poetry. 1 | 
1. “Students of American ethnology are familiar with the fact that 
in nearly all tribes the language of sacred songs differs materially 
from that in daily life. .... Both words and grammatical forms un- 
known to the tongue of daily life occur. These may be archaic, or 
manufactured capriciously by the poet.” — Many of the uncommon 
words in the following Eskimo poems no doubt belong to the sacred 
tongue, partly on account of the claims of taboo; in some cases, too, 
they are fashioned for purely poetical considerations, to create a 
piquant effect. 
2. “Vowels are inordinately lengthened and syllables reduplicated, 
either for the purpose of emphasis or of metre.” — In the Eskimo 
poems one often comes across lengthened sounds (vowels or con- 
sonants) in stead of short, or vice-versa. On the other hand real 
reduplications scarcely occur, but emphatic repetitions of certain 
words are very frequent. 
3. “Meaningless interjections are inserted for metrical effect while 
others are thrown in and repeated in order to express emotion.” — 
As such I reckon the refrains (aja, etc.) in the Eskimo drumsongs, 
and fragments of refrains, too, are sometimes embodied in other 
species of poetry. The initial of the refrain is occasionally fused with 
the end-syllable of the last word of the text thus producing a suffix 
deformity whose true meaning may be difficult to guess. 
4. “The rhetorical figure known as Aposiopesis, where a sentence 
is left unfinished and in an interjectional condition, in consequence 
1 Brinton 1. с. (1887) рр. 28—30. 
