Phonology Of The Hupa Language

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Excerpt from The Phonology of the Hupa Language, Vol. 1: The Individual Sounds Since there is great danger, almost a certainty, that the American languages will become extinct in a few generations, it is extremely important that they should be so recorded that a comparative study may be made of their relation to each other and to the other languages of the world. There are two serious obstacles to be overcome. First, it is extremely difficult for a man of mature years to acquire a new language with any degree of perfection. Months or years of constant association with the native speakers are required for even a fair degree of success. It is not easy to separate the individual sounds from the sound masses, to distinguish closely related sounds, and to ignore distinctions which the speaker has always observed, but which are not observed in the language attempted. The lack of accuracy in this regard is only too evident when vocabularies of the same dialect recorded by different individuals are compared. It is still more apparent when the recorders are of different nationalities. The second task met with is to find a means of conveying to others these sounds so laboriously acquired. This difficulty becomes more apparent to the would-be recorder as his discrimination of the sounds of the language becomes more exact. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.