Ankle and Ute Breaking

(This post contains phonetic transcriptions. Consult the charts of the International Phonetic Association here for help if needed.)

In Ute the word for ‘ankle’ is the same as the word for ‘cartilage’: kɑ́ːʔjoχ. That’s pretty cool all by itself, and it explains why I had a such a hard time finding ‘ankle’ in my usual sources — I was looking in the wrong place.

But there’s also something special about the pronunciation of this word. In the current version of the Ute spelling system, kɑ́ːʔjoχ would be spelled kaa’yog(o). The second o is not always pronounced (which is why it’s in brackets), but we know it’s there.

How do we know it’s there if it isn’t pronounced? By a pretty regular rule of Ute, a vowel at the end of a word is not pronounced. For example, the word for ‘friend’ is tügüv(ü), pronounced tɯɣɯ́v, without the final vowel. Adding the possessive suffix -n ‘my’ yields tügüvün ‘my friend’. The last vowel of the word is no longer at the end of the word; the n is now at the end. So ‘my friend’ is pronounced tɯɣɯ́vʷɯn, with that last vowel in place.

Likewise, the last vowel of ‘ankle’, kaa’yog(o) should be pronounced when something like a possessive suffix is added at the end: kaa’yogon ‘my ankle’, or kaa’yogo’m ‘your (sg) ankle’. But here’s where it gets (even more) interesting. The possessed forms for ‘ankle’ that I actually hear are kɑ́ːʔjoʁwɯn ‘my ankle’ and kɑ́ːʔjoʁwɯʔm ‘your friend.’[1] These possessed forms seem to be based on an alternate version of the stem for ankle: kɑ́ːʔjoɣwɯ, with wɯ instead of o. So where did the wɯ come from?

In some varieties of Ute it’s quite common for o to be pronounced as we when it follows ɣ. The name of the town Towaoc (tójɑk in English) in southwestern Colorado comes from the Ute expression toʁójɑχ ‘It’s good’. However, the local Ute pronunciation of the word is actually toʁwéjɑχ, showing the alternation of o ~ we. You can also hear this alternation in words like toʁóɑv ~ toʁwéɑv ‘rattlesnake’ and mɑʁójʔi̥ ~ mɑʁwéjʔi̥ ‘blanket’. The switch-up between o and we is something I call Ute Breaking.[2] I first noticed it when I was visiting White Mesa, Utah, and talking to some Ute speakers there. They consistently pronounced we where other speakers of Ute pronounced o.

And now with the word for ‘ankle’ I have an example of the alternation of o ~ wɯ, which is very similar to the alternation of o ~ we. And because wɯ shows up in the possessed forms, we know that it is present in the stem; hence, kaa’yogo (or for Towaoc and White Mesa Ute kaa’yogwü). I expect that I’ll find additional examples as I become more familiar with vocabulary from all parts of Ute Country.[3]

[1] A ɣ that is next to an o is pronounced as ʁ, or as χ at the end of a word.

[2] ‘Breaking’ is a term that is used to describe the development of a diphthong — typically a rising diphthong — from a plain vowel. For example, the word ‘only’ in English is basically ‘one’ + ‘ly’. The pronunciation of the vowel of ‘one’ was originally o (as we can hear in ‘only’), and was “broken” when the word ‘one’ stood by itself; the vowel is now pronounced wʌ. I don’t know which pronunciation came first in Ute — o or we. I suspect it was o, and that’s why I call it breaking: an original plain vowel o “broke” and became the diphthong we.

[3] I talked about a similar alternation in my post on the etymology of Timpanogos, which you can find here. In that case the alternation is between u and wi, but it works in the same way. There, I speculated that the direction of the alternation was from wi to u, but I now think that is wrong, and that it goes from u to wi, much like the alternation introduced here. I’ll leave the older post alone though; it’s been over 10 years since I wrote it and no one’s called me out yet.