556 М’. THALBITZER. 
aja, eja or ea etc., as already stated. — We now know that the 
classical poetry of the East Greenlanders, just like that of the old 
Romans, had its own ars poetica, which disappeared during the 
peaceful revolution in the spiritual culture of the natives, caused by 
the appearance of the white race. 
The phonograph material has again and again been found to 
contain single lines or portions of texts not found in the DD text, 
whether the disappearance is due to a gap in the memory of the 
informant or to my occasional haste in writing (for inst. in no. 17, 
1. 22, cf. the note). — In some cases archaic words and forms are 
often retained by the phonograph, when missing in corresponding 
places in the DD texts, because the informant has omitted them, or 
consciously changed them to the forms now in use. It is a characteristic 
fact that many of the natives when dictating showed no scruple in 
correcting the old fashioned expressions to modern ones, just as if 
they were in the habit of making such changes, or as if they knew 
and understood that the old forms, which really belong to the in- 
herited texts presented difficulties to foreign travellers. ! 
The limitations of the phonograph are, on the other hand, clear 
enough. In the first place, an analysis of the sound of the phono- 
graph very seldom assists us in doubtful cases to a fixation of the 
correct text form, or to a sure definition of a phonetic fact. Even 
though the words of the phonograph reached my ear well, the 
recording was often of necessity very uncertain or ambiguous — and 
this not only because the words of the song were deformed by the 
exigencies of the song itself, or of the tale by the traditional mode 
(patina) of recital, but even more because the metal and wax of the 
phonograph present only poor substitutes for the human mouth, tongue 
and throat. The characteristics of the Ammassalik dialect tended only 
to increase this difficulty. There are probably few languages in which 
the weakness of the phonograph at this point is made so apparent 
as in the East Greenland. Again and again even the best trained ear 
would be in danger of confusing the slurred vowels and loosely artic- 
ulated consonants of the Ammassalik Inuit, as for inst.: the a of the 
DD text often sounded like 9 in the phonograph. 
Groups of East Greenland sounds (phones) which are easily mistaken. 
| 1 2 3 | 4 | 5 6 7 8 
1 а mn q а | № Se LES) ca ws а 
| i 3 1) k iP q SS l | 
1 In other instances the archaic expressions were unintelligible to the singer himself, 
among them the words of the refrain, aja, or in the magic formulae ea, kuza. 
