early spellings

[Koontz John E]

On Sat, 20 Mar 2004, Alan Hartley wrote:
> A recent post to the Chinook listserv posed the question of what the
> early English system(s) of transcription of Indian words was called and
> how those spellings might be interpreted. Following is my reply which I
> thought might be pertinent to some Siouan questions:
>
> John Koontz calls it (or something like it) the "Lewis & Clark Phonetic
> Alphabet" (http://spot.colorado.edu/~koontz/faq/orthography.htm#LCPA)

I meant this entirely tongue in cheek, of course.  There really wasn't any
system at all in general use, though you can find cases of more systematic
use somewhat later.  I think the really standardized system used in
America for transcribing Native American languages was the BAE system.
however, it and its successors have never had the slightest influence on
popular usage.

Anyway, Alan, the logic of your deductions here strikes me as excellent.

> The question arises whether these added r's--as in warter and
> musquetors--indicated a pronounced r or were simply a reverse spelling.
> It's hard to say in the case of English words that in some dialects do
> have an intrusive r (Warshington), but Indian words with no trace of r
> and which the journalists would seldom if ever have seen written provide
> pretty convincing evidence of simple reverse spelling.

Incidentally, as a child growing up near Buldimore, Mirlin, I always said
(rhotic) worsh and Worshingtin, since I was being raised in Maryland where
this is notoriously the use.  My mother was (and still is) a native
speaker of Mirlindish, though the vowel shifts have progressed enormously
since her childhood.  It was only in third grade during the required unit
on Maryland history that I suddenly realized that the state name had
nothing to do with the given name Marilyn, both of which were pronounced
mirlin (as in Mirlin Munro) (the -o is epsilon+w).

I combined my Mirlindese with alien pronunciations like boosh and poosh
which I have since realized were acquired from my Kansas-born father.  I
remember being teased constantly for talking like this, though that was
nothing to the flabber-begastment of kids in Detroit and Denver to
Mirlindese.  "Where are you from?  Are you English?"

During German classes in college I suddenly realized that the family
pronunciation of Koontz ("long" oo of coon, not "short" oo of book as
would be expected) might reflect this Kansas phase.  This began when my
native-speaker German teacher attempted delicately to correct my
pronunciation of Koontz.  Until then it had not occurred to me that I
might be saying it wrong from a German perspective.  Of course, I'm not
sure if "short" oo really can occur before n in English, and maybe that's
the more important factor.

Given the range of vowel pronunciations in English and the degree of
disconnect between vowel spelling and that pronunciation, it is not
surprising that we are often at sea in deciphering English-based spelling
of Native American languages.

JEK