Re: Rumsen, Rumsien, Costanoan.

Barry Garcia wrote:
>Anyway, it only has a dictionary of words, since the source he used had
>only made word lists, and not invested time studying the language. The
>words were collected in 1878 by an Alphonse Pinart, and then again in 1884
>by a H.W. Henshaw. The sources were two indians, both from Carmel Mission
>here in California.>
¡Ay de mi!  19th Cent. wordlists, usually collected by earnest amateurs, are
the bane of everyone's research, and a challenge to puzzle out. There was no
standardized system of transcription.   Also, IIRC, weren't most Calif.
languages pretty well moribund by that time?  So the two informants could
well have been from different sub-tribes....

>Jackson uses c with a caron (upside down ^, no?)for /tS/ i assume....
        Pretty standard US usage.

 Pinart
>writes this as <tc>. Jackson also has a character of c with what looks
>like an accent, but I dont know what this sound is, since it's strangely
>not listed in his list of sounds (only c with caron is).
        "c" in US usage usually represnets /ts/-- but with an accent?? Maybe
to show palatalization?  That would possibly accord with Pinart's "tj" (did
he know Dutch? tho Alphonse Pinart sounds French)

Pinart shows c as k always. but Henshaw uses it for /S/, except
>oddly in one instance: <cai> > /kaj/.
        At least he didn't write it "kigh" or somesuch.

>Vowels:
>
>a - as in far, father.
>a with half circle shape above (i *think*it's the "breve" ) - close to
>what, not
        Strikes me that he may be  showing a long/short or tense/lax
distinction with the breve, as also elsewhere. (Not crucial, since you're
adapting this to a simpler phonology.)
(snippy)

>Sample words (montreianized at the very ends):
    (snip interesting examples)
A very nice way to give Montreiano the needed non-Romance aspect.  Seems to
me the transcriptions get you _close enough_ to a working
pronunciation.......

In grad school I had occasion to work thru a ca. 1900 dictionary of one of
the Siouan languages.  The compiler mentioned that his informant, an old man
who had been a chief, had the bad habit of slipping into very depressed
moods, when he would get a far-away look in his eyes and mutter over and
over, "It's all gone, all gone...."