o/u

[Frye, David L]

Well over 100 years ago Franz Boaz wrote an article, "On Alternating Sounds," that dealt with this issue (the language he dealt with was Inuit, I think, but the principle is the same). Ears that are trained to hear the distinction between Spanish o and u, but not trained to pick out the Nahuatl o and o: sounds, will sometimes hear the Nahuatl vowel as Spanish o and sometimes as Spanish u. The distinction between the two tells us something about the listener, but not about Nahuatl.

 

 

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