Chiwere Popular Orthography

[Rankin, Robert L]

> ... aspiration, ... is essentially always a factor in
> Mississippi Valley languages.

True, but since Chiwere/Winnebago specialists have opted to use plain
p,t,c,k for the aspirates, that leaves "h" open to be used in digraphs.

> ...aspiration seems just to be a matter of having a more
> authentic "native accent".

The recordings I have of Truman Dailey, Franklin Murray and Lizzie Harper
make the aspiration distinction 100% of the time. The consonants written
<p,t,c,k> are aspirated [ph,th,ch,kh] in all contexts. But then the
consonants that are typically being written with b,d,j,g are sometimes
voiced but sometimes voiceless-UNaspirated, creating the problem you
describe below:

> I still have a problem with whether the b/p in b/paxoje was
> originally supposed to be "snow" (ba) or "head" (pa)

'Head' is /pha/, of course. And the b/p of Baxoje are both UNaspirated,
i.e., written with "b". This is a problem that Chiwere specialists have
always faced. If they fool themselves into thinking that the distinction is
one of voicing, they simply transcribe many of the words wrong. The
distinction is always aspirated/unaspirated, and the UNaspirated stops can
be *either* voiced or voiceless.

Bob