How to pronounce things

[rwd0002 at unt.edu]

Quoting Wallace Chafe <chafe at linguistics.ucsb.edu>:

> Many years ago Bill Sturtevant went about collecting local 
> pronunciations of tribal names. He didn't publish them, but some may 
> have made their way into the Handbook. One that I particularly 
> remember is Navajo with a low front vowel in the first syllable (as 
> in nab), as opposed to you know what. It's cute to hear Europeans 
> putting stress on the second syllable.
>
> I stand corrected on Chitimacha. Seems I've been saying it wrong all 
> these years. But surely the second ch is sh.
>
> Wally


Yes, aren't Europeans cute.  I remember the times, fresh off the 747, 
when I was a student at the U. of Kansas, the only Belgian they could 
ever remember there.  I got to meet a Papago from Haskell, pretty much 
the first Native American I ever met, who got me to say Pap-ago, as 
opposed to my very natural Puh-pay-go.

But I had the good fortune of being roommates with Uto-Aztecanist John 
McLaughlin, who got me to pronounce everything in the proper Amurrican 
way. He taught me many things, including the proper pronunciation of 
Chitimacha. He said it is supposed to be Shitty-muh-shaw, but because 
of the sound of the first syllable, the preferred pronunciation is 
Chitty-muh-shaw. I assume he got this wisdom from his teacher Wick 
Miller, who himself was a student of Mary Haas.

Willem