1. Sounds and Spelling

What You’ll Learn

This lesson teaches the spelling habits you need before reading examples:

• most letters sound close to plain English values;
• an apostrophe marks a short catch in the throat;
• th can stand for the breathy sound in “thin”;
• stress usually falls near the start of older words.

Start by Reading Slowly

Early Hick spelling is meant to be readable. A word like mater can be read in small pieces:

ma-ter
vessel, boat

A word like barak'er has a stem and an ending:

barak-'er
walk-ACTION
"walks" or "is walking"

The apostrophe is not decoration. It marks a short catch in the throat, like the break in the middle of “uh-oh.” The technical name is a glottal stop.

The th Sound

Some technical notes write the “thin” sound as θ. In these lessons, read it as English th.

thral
sacred thing, ritual

If you see -eth in the lexicon, read the last sound like th:

-eth
that, sensed but hidden

Stress and Word Shape

Many Early Hick words are easiest to read with the first part stronger:

MA-ter
BA-rak
RIS-ma-ter

Do not worry about perfect pronunciation yet. For beginner reading, the goal is to keep the pieces clear.

Try It

Read each word in pieces, then check the answer.

1. rismater
2. 'al
3. kakel
4. branum

Pop quiz Answers

1. ris-ma-ter, “reed boat”
2. 'al, “person”
3. ka-kel, “sky-like, blue”
4. bra-num, “past”

Reference Note

For the technical description, see Proto-Hick Reconstruction: Segmental Inventory and Prosodic System.