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��INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF AMERICAN LINGUISTICS
��VOL. I
��have been observed between the Quileute and Makah tribes. The members of these two are the otily Indians in the United States proper known to have actually engaged in whale- hunting. And, while the Makahs gave up this occupation with the advent of the white man, the Quileutes still pursued it up to about 20 years ago.
One of the forms of abnormal types of speech first observed in Quileute pertains to certain words used by children. These words are dis- tinguished from similar terms used by grown- up people either by means of a certain suffix, or also by the exhibition of internal changes which, to borrow Sapir's terminology, are based upon the principle of " consonantal or vocalic play . A few words have been found which are totally distinct from the stems used by individuals other than children.
In a majority of cases the children add the suffix -ck! to each word used by them. This sutfix has no other grammatical function. Thus a child says ',
��d'lo'ck !
tcttla'ck!
aback!
��FATHER for o'/d'
UNCLE for tcfe'la'
GRANDPARENT for aba'
��In addressing its mother, a child uses the term ka'a'dada instead of ka'a. In this case the reduplicated form of the suffix -da merely represents the babbling of a young child and was referred to by my informant as " baby talk. "
Some " baby talk " words are based upon changes involving " consonantal and vocalic play. " Thus a child calls the DEER bdwa'yicka 1 instead of hawa'yicka' ; a CAT is referred to as puda instead of pia'c ; while a cow in " baby talk " is ma" instead of bosbos. In this connec-
��i . The phonetic transcription of sounds agrees in the main with the recommandations made by the Committee of the American Anthropological Society.
��tion it is worth while noting that the nasal m is foreign to Quileute phonetics, being always replaced by a labial />. The inferences that may be drawn from this will be discussed later on. Among the words used by children only and totally distinct from similar terms employed by grown-up persons the following may be men- tioned.
��MM*
bo '
��FOOD
WATER
CROW
CLOTHES
TOY
��for a' liia for q!u<a'\a for ht'iiw for yfsdak'
��Of afar greater importance, particularly from a comparative point of view, are those abnor- mal types of speech which are used whenever it is desired to single out some physical trait of the speaker, of the person addressed, or of the person spoken of. For that purpose the na- tive Quileute uses partly certain prefixes, and partly internal changes involving " consonan- tal play ". It will be well to state at the outset that these forms of speech apply only to persons physically abnormal and to mythological beings or animals. Sufficient data from other languages are still lacking to justify even the attempt at explaining or accounting for the psychological reasons underlying this linguistic phenomenon. Attention, however, may be called to the ex- planation given by one of my informants. Ac- cording to his testimony, this phenomenon goes back to an ancient custom whereby each individual discriminated his own speech by means of an affix. The individual in question usually had some physical deformity. Now, while this explanation may not be convincing, it is original and, in the absence of weightier reasons, must be taken at its face value.
Most affixes and forms representing an abnor-
��2. These two terms may be onomatopoetic in origin and character.
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