Lesson #1

The main text I am using to learn Yaqui, Sonora Yaqui Language Structures, gives a detailed description of the Yaqui language spoken in Sonora, México. My original intent was to learn the Pascua Yaqui language (AZ), though the authors attest that the two are actually quite similar. Pascua Yaqui has more borrowings from Spanish and English- what Dedrick calls a "learner's vocabulary" (pp. 3).

Starting with Yaqui phonology (sound system), I am already encountering some successes and some problems. First, I am quite comfortable with the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) symbols used to describe the sound system, but I have yet to find a resource that will model these sounds for me. Fortunately I have phonetic training in Spanish, which has aided me with the pronunciation of Yaqui vowels and some consonants (i.e. [ß] voiced bilabial fricative, [p] voiceless, unaspirated bilabial stop).

Additionally, as a native speaker of English, I am able to produce the retroflex "r" (as in "red") as in English and the glottal stop (as in "uh-oh")- admittedly the latter is more difficult to produce in unfamiliar words though. Yet, there remain some sounds that are completely foreign to me. For example, the [b^w], which I had previously assumed was a different way to transcribe [ß] until reading more into the text. I have found that this phoneme occurs at the onset of a syllable and starts like the [b] voiced bilabial stop and releases as a glide into the following vowel. As it turns out, not as difficult as I imagine- though an audio example would be quite beneficial.

Furthermore, there is this fun little consonant cluster [kt]; to pronounce it correctly, simply position the back of your tongue as if you are producing [k] and the front of your tongue as if you are producing [t]. Now try to produce both sounds at the same time. Did you do it? I didn't either.

Lesson #1: Use prior knowledge!

At least with phonological structures I can draw from my knowledge of both the English and Spanish sound systems to create and test my hypotheses about pronunciation in Yaqui. This background knowledge made me a bit more comfortable jumping into a language of which I had no prior knowledge (with regards to phonology or grammar). Also, the text I am using is very much linguistic based, and the terminology alone would be daunting had I not already been familiar with it.