| Lesson 1 — Glottal
stop — |
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| This is one of the most common sounds in the Chumash languages. It's called "glottal stop" because you pronounce it by quickly closing the "glottis" — the vocal cords or voice box. | |||
| Glottal stop shows up in English, in words like "oh-oh" and "uh-uh." | |||
| There are two ways to write glottal stop: | |||
An apostrophe or a single quote with the curve open on the left: |
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A symbol like a question mark without the dot. |
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| These lessons use the apostrophe because it's easier to write and type. | |||
 tu |
"ear" |  |
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| ya |
"arrow" | ||
| we |
"to sleep" | ||
| a |
"crow" | tu |
ya |
| Glottal stop can show up anywhere in Samala words. Glottal stop is easiest to hear when it's between vowels: | |||
| woo |
"to tell a lie" |  |
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| siip |
"they say" | a |
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| a
— ma a |
"crow" — "the crow" | ||
| Some pairs of words mean different things depending on whether there"s a glottal stop at the end: | |||
| he
— he |
"yes" — "this one" |  |
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| nono
— nono |
"grandfather" — "a lot, very much" | ma |
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| ma
— ma |
"the" — "rabbit" | ||
| Hearing Glottal Stop |
| Glottal stop is very common when a word begins with a vowel, but it's much easier to hear if some vowel comes before it. This might be another word that ends in a vowel, such ma or ha "the," or some prefix such as ki- "our." | |||
| o
— ma o |
"water" — "the water" |  |
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| ap
— kiap |
"house" — "our house" | ||
 w
— ma w |
"knife" — "the knife" | o |
w |
| Some words — like o
— begin and end with glottal stop: |
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| aniso |
"seagull" | ||
| iti
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"here" | ||
| elewese
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"starfish" | ||
| aniso |
elewese
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