Lesson One: Pronouncing Takelma

This lesson teaches how to pronounce words in the Takelma language. The human mouth can make many different sounds, but each language uses just a few of them. Most of the sounds used in the Takelma language are also used in English, and the few others are easy to learn.

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Vowels

Short vowels
a, as in English "ah"
e, as in "pet"
i, as in "hit"
o, as in "roll"
u, as in "rude"

Long vowels
aa, like "a" but twice as long
ee, like "e" but twice as long, and with the mouth open a bit wider
ii, like the "ea" in "heat"
oo, like "o" but twice as long
uu, like "u" but twice as long

Long vowels aren't pronounced the way they would be in English; for example, oo rhymes with "snow," not with "too." Most long vowels sound like their equivanet short vowel, but last twice as long, and are pronounced with a very, very slight pause between the two halves. (Linguists — people who study languages — call this little pause in the middle of a vowel "rearticulation.") The difference between long and short vowels is important in Takelma; for example, yaada't means "he will swim," but yada't means "he swims" or "he was swimming."

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Consonants

h, as in "help"
k, as in "skin"
kh, as in "kin"
l, as in "lily"
m, as in "man"
n, as in "nut"
p, as in "spot"
ph, as in "pot"
t, as in "stop," but with the tongue tip up against the back of the teeth
th, as in "top," but with the tongue tip up against the back of the teeth
ts, as in "lots"
w, as in "way"

In English there are voiced and unvoiced consonants. (If you say the letters t and d, and pay attention to the way your mouth moves, you'll find that the only difference between them is whether or not your vocal cords down in your throat are making a sound or not; without the sound, you say t, and with it you say d, so t is called an unvoiced letter and d is voiced.) In Takelma, the only voiced consonants are l, m and n.

The Takelma language has a feature, though, that used to confuse English speakers in the old days. In English, when an unvoiced consonant like t comes at the start or finish of a word, or in front of a vowel, it's aspirated. This means the letter comes out followed by a little puff of breath. Say "top" and then "stop." Do you feel the extra breath after the t in "top"? That's aspiration. Another way to learn to hear aspiration is to say t aloud, and then whisper d. Hear the extra "puff" with the t? Again, that's aspiration.

Takelma doesn't aspirate unvoiced consonants at the start of a word or in front of a vowel, the way English does. Instead, it aspirates them at the end of a word or in front of some consonants. This is why English speakers sometimes got confused writing Takelma words, and wrote "Dagelma" in place of "Takelma" and "Di'loomìk" instead of "Ti'loomìk." Without the aspiration, that's how it sounded to them.

In this book, kh is the aspirated form of k, ph is aspirated p, and th is aspirated t, so you should have no trouble figuring out which is which. Still, it's good to learn the rule: when k, p, and t are at the end of a word, or in front of another k, p, or t, they become kh, ph, and th. The same rule works the other way: if you have a word that normally ends in kh, ph, or th, and a suffix (something added to the end of a word) that doesn't begin with k, p, or t is put on that word, the kh, ph, or th turns into a k, p, or t.

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Five Less Familiar Sounds

Five things in Takelma take some work for people who've grown up speaking English. One of them is the vowel ü. English doesn't use this vowel, though German, French, and many other languages do. To say it, purse your lips as though you were about to say "oooh," and then try to say "eee" instead. Like the other Takelma vowels, this one has a long form, üü, too.

The second is the letter s, which isn't quite the same as an English "s." Say "ssss," and then "shhhh," as though you're hushing someone; the Takelma s is halfway between them, with the tongue pulled back just a little from the teeth. Some Takelma speakers used to pronounce it just like the English s, though.

The third is the letter x, which sounds like the ch in "Loch Ness" or the name of the German composer Bach.

The fourth is the catch — linguists call this a "glottal stop" — which is marked by the symbol ' after a letter, as in waya', "he sleeps," or heelá's, "singer." You make it by closing the back of your throat at the end of a sound, making a break between that sound and the next one. When something goes wrong and you say "uh-oh," the break between the "uh" and the "oh" is a catch.

The fifth is the click, which is marked by the symbol !, as in kwit!in, "wrist." (Consonants with clicks are called "glottalized consonants" by linguists.) The click is the toughest of the Takelma sounds, but once you've learned the catch, it won't be too hard. It only happens with k, p, t, and ts. To make it, close your throat as though you were saying a catch, and keep it closed while you say the letter, raising your Adam's apple a bit; then, just as you finish saying the letter, let it go, making a "pop" sound.

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Tones

Takelma also has three tones: raised, rising, and falling. English has tones, too, but they're used to affect sentences, not words. Think of the difference between "She's coming?" and "She's coming." The words are the same, but when you speak them aloud, the "coming" in the first sentence is said in a raised tone, and the one in the second sentence is said in a lowered tone.

Not all Takelma words are affected by tone, and those that are are marked with accents.

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Exercises

A. Say the following Takelma words and sentences out loud. Take your time with them, and make sure you pronounce every letter — there are no silent letters in Takelma!

malaakwa – he told him
kaik' – he ate it
kayawa'n – I ate it
t!ayak – he found it
wayá – knife
kwetéi – his name
táxinikam – we will find each other
lapáam – frog
yewéite' – I returned
tasmayamán – he smiled
yebá' – let us return
ikwaákwok' – he woke him up
k!emén – it was made
alxik!álhik' – I keep looking at him
sin'iilats!akí'n – I touch his nose
tapok!opákna'n – I blow bubbles

Yap!a wílii k!eméi – people make the house (literally, people the house they make it).

Kana'néx hop!é'n yap!a'a wílii; lepnìxa wiliì kanát. – in that way people long ago made their houses; in winter their houses were like that (literally, in that way long ago people, for their part, their house; in winter their house of that kind).

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B. Say the Takelma numbers from one to ten out loud, and practice them until you can say them without looking at the book.

mìi'ska' – one
kàap!inì – two
xìpinì – three
kamkàm – four
téehal – five
ha'iimii's – six
ha'iikàa'm – seven
ha'iixìn – eight
ha'iikò – nine
ìxtiil – ten

The number words from six to ten actually mean something a little different than their English equivalents. Ha'ii literally means "in hand," or as we'd say in English, "a handful," so ha'iimii's is "a handful and one," ha'iikàa'm is "a handful and two," ha'iixín is "a handful and three," and ha'iikó is "a handful and four," while ìxtiil is "a pair of hands." If you're counting on your fingers, it makes sense to treat groups of five as "handfuls"!

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