Pronunciation — Introduction to the phonetic symbols

Why write Chumash with phonetic symbols? Why not just write it like English?

The phonetic symbols operate on the principal of one sound, one symbol, which is very different from the crazy way English spelling works. These symbols have the same sound every time you see them.

The sound system of the Chumash languages is quite different from English — and much more complex. Using the phonetic symbols helps you to hear and make distinctions that English spelling might confuse.

Here's an example. Chumash makes a four-way distinction between: s as in "see," sh as in "she," an S sound followed by an H, as in "grasshopper," and sh followed by H, as in "fishhook." How would you keep all this straight using English spelling? Here are the phonetic symbols for these sounds:

	English example	Chumash example
s	"see"	sa "tooth"
	"shoe"	up "earth, world, year"
s	"grasshopper"	sa "fishhook; "his/her tooth""
	"fishhook"	ipuk "his/her elbow"

And on top of this, there's also the matter of Chumash h and x — x is a raspier version of h, like the J of Spanish "baja" or the CH of German "Bach." In addition to the sequence of s plus h in sa "fishhook," there's also a sequence of s plus x in words such as sxamin "ocean" and sxoni "his/her mother."

In the end, it's easier to use the phonetic symbols than to concoct ways to get away without them. An added bonus is that being familiar with these symbols gives you an advantage if work with some of the more academic discussions of the Chumash languages, as well as many other natve languages.

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