Or 
Language and Folklore (Supplement). 55 
No. 199 (I Bs). 
Phon. DD 
pitsimita la‘ioaj aja pitstmiale:wa 
piararqüiara imaja pilarquia ma 
The efficiency of the phonograph for recording language has been 
severely criticised. No one doubts (as far as I know) of its great value as 
a means for preserving the evanescent pitch of words, the modulations 
of speech and musical records." However the question is: can the 
recording of texts on the phonograph (with, or without, the sung 
melody) really be of use to the science of language? I grant as my con- 
clusion that the recorder must be familiar with the particular language 
(idiom) he wishes to record from a phonograph. He must, above 
all be familiar with its phonetics from own hearing. Otherwise the 
phonograph does not assist him to any better linguistical understanding, 
far preferable indeed, is the dictated text. However, I believe in spite 
of all, that the preceding pages show that under the above-named sup- 
position, the phonograph may prove an inestimable help to both 
philologist and folklorist in their further investigations of the texts 
noted on their travels among the natives. 
The positive qualities of the phonograph are of assistance to the 
recording folklorist in many ways. Our discovery of the elementary 
laws of Eskimo songs and poetry is largely due to the phonograph. 
Our closer acquaintance with the forms of the aja refrains, the prosody 
of the texts and many linguistic details has been made possible thanks 
to the opportunity afforded by the phonograph of making experiments 
and constant repetitions of the same word or same section of the 
natural flow of the voice. The phonograph elucidated many points 
whose existence in this language and poetical art we had _ hardly 
guessed at previously, and the work can continue even after the 
_East Greenland dialect is a dead language. | 
The phonograph made clear to us the style of the melodies, 
their rhythmic rise and fall, the content of the refrain and the order 
and position of the repeated periods. What we hardly dared credit 
a few years ago is now proved true. Each text strophe (burden) has 
its exact position among the periods of the refrain; like each of the 
periods, it has its own melody; and there are recurrent groups cor- 
responding to what we understand by strophes or verses. It is by 
no means left to chance whether the singer says aja or ajä, aja ог 
* As examples: Pliny Е. Goddard, A Graphic Method of recording Songs eer 
Anniversary Volume, Anthropolog. Papers, 1906). — О. Abraham and Е. 
Hornbostel: _Phonographische Indianermelodien aus British Columbia (ibid.). — 
Francis о. Recent Developments in the Study of Indian Music. (Pro- 
ceedings of the 19th Internat. Congress of Americanists. Washington 1917, pag. 
298— 301.) 
