Lesson 3

Lesson 3 — Sounds — Aspirated consonants

In the lesson on glottalized consonants, you learned that most of the consonants of Samala have plain and glottalized forms.
Glottalization is an added feature that's written with an apostrophe next to the consonant: k is a glottalized k — a k pronounced with an almost simultaneous glottal stop.
There is another feature that the Chumash languages can add to most of the consonants. It's an extra puff of breath after the consonant. This is called aspiration, which refers to that puff of breath.
Aspiration is written with a small raised H after the consonant — .
You've seen a few examples of aspirated consonants so far.
	o / oho	"to be good"		o /
	kuhu	"who knows?"		oho
	samala	"Inezeno"

Aspirated consonants in English

The clearest English examples of aspirated consonants involve words starting with h that come right after words that end in certain consonants, such as:
ch+h:	watch here		s+h:	grasshopper
k+h:	take-home		sh+h:	fishhook
p+h:	uphill		ts+h:	that's him
t+h:	White House

Aspiration shows up in a good many other English words too.
Most of the time, just like glottal stop, aspiration shows up in English but we dont use it to distinguish one word from another the way Samala does.
Say "pit" out loud and hold your hand about six inches in front of your mouth. Youll feel the puff of breath that accompanies the "P" of "pit," because it's automatically aspirated in English.
With your hand still about six inches in front of your mouth, now say "spit" out loud. Notice that there's no puff of breath this time, since P is not aspirated in English when there's an S in front of it.
The good news: You already know how to pronounce an aspirated consonant.
The bad news: Aspiration shows up in English under certain conditions, which means that it's automatic and you ordinarily don't pay any attention to it. It's simply one of the subliminal clues that help you distinguish "p" from "b," for example.
Here are the conditions for aspiration in English:
	English p t ch and k are aspirated when they come at the beginning of a syllable that has the accent: pin, tin, chin, kin.
	There's no aspiration if an S comes before the consonant in the same word: pan : span, tan : Stan, can : scan
	There's no aspiration before unaccented syllables: backup, dipper, master, thicker.
	Aspiration is optional when an accented syllable ends the word: dump, thick, wait, watch, but setup, bucket, logic.
	Theres no aspiration when an unaccented syllable ends the word: setup, bucket, logic.
Given these conditions, say these sets of words out loud and listen to the differences between them. Hold your hand about six inches in front of your mouth and feel the differences.
	the spit : this pit		the stop : this top

Aspirated consonants in Samala

In some ways the situation in Samala is much simpler.
The plain consonants of Samala have no aspiration at all, and then there are consonants which are aspirated.
Here's a pair of words where the only difference is whether the first consonant is aspirated or not: The s– that means "he/she/it" in front of these words makes it easier to hear the aspiration and lack of aspiration.
	s–p	"he/she dips it up, ladles it up, fishes with a net"
	s–p	"he/she plays the walnut dice game"

Here are pairs of words where aspiration is part of the difference. Again, the s– makes it easier to hear.
	s–qap	"its feather, leaf"
	s–qapqap	"he/she is thin, slender"

	Don't pronounce these aspirated sequences of consonant plus h as if they were English spellings. Be especially careful about these four:
	c	as in "that's him"	not "chin"
	p	as in "uphill"	not "phone"
	s	as in "grasshopper"	not "shin"
	t	as in "rat hole"	not "think"

Where aspiration shows up in Samala words

In Samala aspirated consonants can show up					cií
at the beginning of the word:
	o	"to be good"
	uma	"islander"		o
	cií	"shhh!" — "hush!" — interjection
	sa	"arrowhead, fishhook"	sa
in the middle of the word:
	yxkt	"to be awake"
	apan	"town, village"
	ipoy	"smile"	yxkt
	oqo	"otter"
but not at the end of a word.				apan	oqo

Accent in words with h and aspiration

The accent in a Samala word is usually on the second syllable from the end.
	kotoyin	paqmil	lukumel	samala
But if the last syllable of the word starts with an h or has an aspirated consonant, then the accent goes on the last syllable:
	muhu	"owl"	ipoy ha ii
	tuhuy	"it's raining"
	kyxkt	"I'm awake"
	ipoy	"he/she is smiling"
			syxkt ha huu

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