INTRODUCTION.

THE collection of Koryak texts here published was made as part of the field-work of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition of the American Museum of Natural History. Since the Museum does not allow sufficient space for the publication of all the linguistic material, which naturally forms one of the most important aspects of the work of the Expedition, the American Ethnological Society has undertaken the publication of part of it.

The texts contained in this volume were collected by me between December, 1900, and April, 1901. While Mr. Waldemar Jochelson, my colleague in the ethnological work of the Expedition in northeastern Siberia, investigated the ethnology of the Koryak, I undertook the study of their language, because my practical knowledge and previous studies of the Chukchee language put me in a position to acquire with ease a knowledge of the Koryak, which is closely related to the Chukchee.

I left the Anadyr country in December, 1900, and travelled to the village of Kamenskoye, on Penshina Bay, where I met Mr. Jochelson. I staid with him one month, after which time I proceeded to the southeast, to the eastern branch of the Koryak, and also visited the Kamchadal. I travelled among these tribes for two months, until my return to the mouth of the Anadyr, on April 8, 1901. A considerable part of this time was spent in covering the long distances between the villages, the journey bring made by reindeer or dog sledge and on

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snowshoes. Some parts of this territory had never been visited by any white man, not even by a single Russian trader, and I met camps and villages the inhabitants of which did not even know the taste of brandy,--in these countries, the foremost product of civilization, and the first to arrive. The last fifteen days of the journey between the Ke'rek region and Anadyr Bay 1 were spent in going without a guide through a country wholly uninhabited; for the Kerek, who have but few dogs, do not go very far from their villages on the coast, and are unfamiliar with the hills of the interior.

We travelled up-stream along several small rivers that flow into Bering Sea on the Ke'rek coast, and then, passing over the divide, followed the rivers that belong to the Anadyr system, and finally reached the first camps of the Telqäp Chukchee. This is the method of travelling adopted by the ancient cossacks, the conquerors of Siberia.

All the time that was not taken up by travel, and that was available for study, was devoted to an investigation of the languages of the Eastern Koryak and Kamchadal tribes. The study of the Koryak was the more extensive, owing to its closer affinity to the Chukchee in grammar as well as in vocabulary.

The Koryak dialects may be divided into two large groups,--the western branch, which includes the Maritime Koryak of Penshina Bay and also the Reindeer Koryak; and the eastern branch, which includes the Maritime Koryak of Kamchatka, and also the inhabitants of the villages RekI'nnok, Pustoretzk, and Podkaguirnoye, to the south of Parapolski Dol. These last belong ethnographically to the Kamchatka Koryak, although they are counted by the Russian Administration as belonging to the Gishiga district. The eastern branch includes also the Maritime

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[paragraph continues] Koryak of the villages on the Pacific coast around Alutor Bay, and those of the Pacific villages still farther east. The Kerek stand apart, and form perhaps a third dialect, although, on the whole, similar to the western branch.

The most obvious point of difference between the two branches is that the sound r, which occurs frequently in the eastern branch of the Koryak and in the Chukchee, is wholly missing in the western branch, and is there replaced either by y or (less frequently) by t, č, s. The natives are well aware of this difference; and in the tales of the Penshina Koryak, as may be seen from the texts, the use of r in the pronunciation of certain words is ascribed to evil spirits.

The inhabitants of villages on the rivers Vi'rnIk, Poqa'č, and Opu'ka, (i. e., between the Alutor Koryak and the Ke'rek), explained to me that, though leading the settled life of sea-hunters, they belong by origin to the Reindeer Koryak. In proof of this they pointed to their pronunciation. They said, "We say yaya'ña (HOUSE), and the Alutor people say rara'ña."

Instead of the classification "western and eastern groups," we might just as well have said "northern and southern groups;" but I prefer the former designation, because the pronunciation of the eastern branch is nearer to that of the Chukchee, who live to the east.

The Koryak language, in contrast to the Chukchee, which has almost no dialects, is furthermore divided into several local dialects. Each bay and river, with its few villages, has a dialect of its own, differing from the others in pronunciation and vocabulary; and a dialect of Kamchatka may in some respects be nearer to a dialect of Penshina Bay than to that of its immediate neighbor.

The following series of texts was collected chiefly in the village of Kamenskoye (Koryak, Vai'kenan), on Penshina

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Bay, with the help of Nicholas Vilkhin, Mr. Jochelson's interpreter. The correct transcription of Koryak phonetics offered considerable difficulty, since Nicholas Vilkhin, a half-Russianized Koryak raised in Gishiginsk, belongs by birth to the village of Paren (Koryak, Poi'tIn). Now, the dialects of Paren and Kamenskoye, though very much alike, present several points of difference. Some of these are, that e of Paren is replaced by a in Kamenskoye; tk, by tč (čč); y, by s. The people of Kamenskoye are well acquainted with the Paren pronunciation, because the intercourse between the villages is considerable. Therefore many of them, when talking with the interpreter, would assume his style of pronunciation. I have tried to avoid confounding the two systems of pronunciation, but I am not sure that I have succeeded in doing so in all cases. Besides this, the rules of pronunciation, which are strict and consistent in the Chukchee language, are quite lax in all the Koryak dialects.

The harmony of vowels, which exists in Chukchee, is unstable in Koryak, and often inconsistent. Chukchee has two groups of long vowels,--

[paragraph continues] The vowels of the one group cannot be combined with those of the other, either in single words or in compounds such as are in use in this group of languages. The other vowels of the Chukchee are short, obscure, and neutral. Therefore they may form combinations with either group of long vowels. In compounds, the vowels of the first group are replaced by the corresponding vowels of the second group whenever the word contains a single vowel of the second group in any position whatsoever. There are also some stems containing only neutral vowels, which

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nevertheless require the exclusive use of vowels of the second group in the other parts of the word.

In Koryak, with its constant dialectical changes from a to e, this pair of vowels is excluded from the action of the vocalic harmony just described, and both a and e are considered as neutral. Thus, in the dialect of Kamenskoye, nu'tanut (EARTH) changes in the dative to notaï'tIñ. The two remaining pairs (i-ê, 1 u-o) also admit many exceptions, in contrast to the strictness of the rule of harmony prevailing in Chukchee. Owing to the intermarriage between the people of different villages, a, e, ä, i, may also be used in the same place by different persons, especially when not under accent; for instance, na'nako and na'nIko. In the same way, uu and oo, aw and ā, the verbal suffixes -lin and -len, interchange; for instance, some people of Kamenskoye say nuu'wġe (COOKED MEAT), others noo'wġe.

There are also dialectic differences in the use of consonants; for instance, intervocalic y, which is omitted in Chukchee and preserved in the Paren dialect of the Koryak, may be omitted in the Kamenskoye dialects, although it is sometimes pronounced, but less distinctly than in the Paren dialect. The sound č may to a considerable extent be replaced by s, s*, t. Chukchee has for this sound two different pronunciations, č by men, and š by women. A slight difference in the pronunciation by the sexes exists among the Koryak, but much less strict and regular than in Chukchee. Men use the pronunciation č, while women employ s* or t 2. The sound-group nñI is replaced individually by nni; q, by k; wġ, by ww or wx; y, by ġ; etc.

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Except when otherwise stated, the texts were taken

down in the village of Kamenskoye, from the lips of Maritime Koryak women or girls, as follows: 1, 2, 12-14, 18, from Pa'qa; 3, 17, from Ai'wan-ñaw; 4, 5, 8-10, 16, from Anne; 6, from Yu'łta-ña'ut; 7, 19, 20, from A'qanñaw; 11, from Ai'u-ña'ut; 15, from IpIña.

Text No. 21 is in the dialect of Pa'llan, a large village of northern Kamchatka on the Okhotsk Sea, and was related to me by Basile, a Maritime Koryak man.

Text No. 22 is in the Paren dialect, taken down in the village of Kamenskoye from the words of Nicholas Vilkhin, a native of Paren, Mr. Jochelson's interpreter.

Text No. 23 is in six languages,--in Chukchee; in Koryak of Kamenskoye, Qare'ñIn, 1 and Lesna; 2 and in Kamchadal of the Okhotsk shore and of the village Sedanka (Kamchadal, E'sxlin) in the mountains, the dialect of which has undergone a great change through Koryak influences. The original text is from Kamenskoye, and was dictated by Anne, a Koryak woman of that village. The Chukchee translation was made by Aqan*kau', a Maritime Chukchee man at the mouth of the Anadyr; the Qare'ñIn version, by Maria, a Koryak woman of the village Qare'ñIn; the Lesna version, by Andrew, a Maritime Koryak man from Lesna; the first Kamchadal version, by Ivan Kulagin, a Kamchadal man from the village Napana (Kamchadal, Na'pno); and the second Kamchadal version, by Tatiana, a Kamchadal woman from Sedanka.

Text No. 24 is in three dialects,--Kamenskoye, Paren, and Qare'ñIn. The original text was recorded from dictation by Pa'qa, a Koryak girl of the village of Kamenskoye. The Paren translation was made by Nicholas

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[paragraph continues] Vilkhin; and the Qare'ñIn translation, by Maria of Qare'ñIn, mentioned before.

These texts may serve very well for a comparative study of all three languages. I took care to have the translation made as literally as possible, although a few changes were unavoidable. Thus, for instance, the Koryak QuyInn*aqu'nu, which is simply the plural of Quiqinn*a'qu, is translated in Kamchadal as K!u'txen k!č!a'mjanł`a^?n (KUTX'S MEN). The Chukchee erre'č (Kamenskoye Koryak aččo'č), which signifies THAT IS ALL, in the Qare'ñIn Koryak is replaced by. tenma'wIłen, which signifies THE FINISHED ONE. Ġe'tkurlI, added in two Kamchatka Koryak texts, signifies DID ALL AT ONCE, and indicates the suddenness of action, etc.

The affinity between the Chukchee and the various dialects of the Koryak is evident; but in reality it is still greater than it appears after a hasty comparison. For instance, HE BROUGHT HER HOME, in Qare'ñIn Koryak, is ġanrai'tałen; and in Chukchee, rIrai'tannen. The Chukchee, however, has also the form ġanrai'taŁen, only it is used syntactically in a different manner.

Free translations of a part of these tales were published in Mr. Jochelson's work on the Koryak ("Publications of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition," Vol. VI), together with other Koryak and Kamchadal tales which I collected without original texts. References to Mr. Jochelson's versions are here given in footnotes to the tales.

A number of tales are given with interlinear translation and free translation; others, only with free translation. The attempt has been made to render the texts as accurately as possible; but it has been found necessary to omit in the translations many of the particles, which are as numerous in Koryak as in Chukchee, and hardly admit of adequate translation.

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Words added in translations for the sake of clearness are placed in parentheses. Literal translations of Koryak words or phrases are enclosed in brackets.

The Koryak here given may be compared with the Chukchee texts published by me in Vol. VIII of the "Publications of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition" and in the "Publications of the Russian Imperial Academy of Sciences." 1

Few Koryak or Chukchee tales are known under definite names. Titles indicating the contents have been added by me. I have transcribed the name of BIG-RAVEN in the form most frequently met with, QuyqInn*a'qu, although Mr. Jochelson prefers Quikinn*a'qu. In Chukchee are found the forms Ku'rkIl or Ku'urkIl; and in Kamchadal, K!utx. In Koryak I write the third letter as y, because it replaces Chukchee r; the fourth letter as q, because of the corresponding Kamchadal x. For Eme'mqut, in the English translation, I have retained. the Paren pronunciation adopted by Mr. Jochelson, although in these texts the Kamenskoye pronunciation Ama'mqut was used more frequently.

The following alphabet has been used for transcribing Koryak and Kamchadal sounds: -

VOWELS.

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Very long and very short vowels are indicated by the macron and breve respectively.

The diphthongs are formed by combining any of the vowels with i and u. Thus,--

CONSONANTS.

b`, p`, d`, t`, k`, g`, w`, l`, m`, n` have a spirant added (Gehauchter Absatz of Sievers).

! designates the increased stress of articulation. K!, p!, č!, t!, are pronounced with a sudden explosion, which gives them a clicking sound.

? a full pause between two sounds: yiñe?a, att?Iyuł.

- used to connect the parts of a compound word.

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Sounds ë, ü, ö, å, x*, j, z, belong only to the Kamchadal.

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Since in the western branch of the Koryak the Chukchee r is replaced by consonantic y, there appear the combinations ay, oy, which are distinct from the diphthongs ai, oi. They are pronounced like the respective diphthongs, but their y replaces the corresponding Chukchee r.

In Koryak the compound sound wġ, ġw, replaces the Chukchee sound wkw.

x in Koryak occurs but rarely, and replaces the velar q.

In Koryak as well as in Chukchee, I terminal and unaccented is frequently pronounced with a slight nasal sound; but in Koryak the nasal sound is often pronounced quite distinctly. I do not use any additional sign to indicate the nasal character of this sound. On the other hand, I preferred to add ñ when the nasal sound was pronounced quite distinctly. Therefore, for instance, the dative of the noun has been transcribed in some cases as yayai'tI TO THE HOUSE, and in others as notai'tIñ TO THE OPEN COUNTRY.

In Kamchadal, the Chukchee r is replaced by j. This j sound is often pronounced with a light r trill, somewhat like the Polish sound rz.

In the second Kamchadal dialect, 1 I sometimes has a slight nasal sound. This nasal ł replaces the usual n of the first Kamchadal dialect. 2 No special symbol was adopted for this nasal ł sound.

The Koryak as well as the Chukchee, in order to express a strong exclamation, transfer the accent to the last syllable. Under this transferred accent, i is changed to e; and a, I, u, are changed to o. For instance, E'nki becomes Enke'; ñawa'kak becomes ñawako'k. At the end of tales, a'ččIč becomes aččo'č.

Footnotes

2:1 See map, Publications of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition, vol. vii.

5:1 I use in Koryak, instead of this ê, simply e.

5:2 It is interesting to note that the possessive adjective QuyqInn*a'qučhin, BIG RAVEN'S (literally, RAVEN-BIG-HIS), has č; and Miti's*hin, MITI'S (literally, MITI'-HER), has the corresponding s*.

6:1 Russian, Карага, a large village in northern Kamchatka on the Pacific coast.

6:2 A village of northern Kamchatka, on the Sea of Okhotsk, called in Koryak Vei'emłIn (THAT OF THE RIVER).

8:1 В. Г. Богоразъ. Матеріалы по изученію чукотскаго Языка и фольклора, собранные въ Колымскомъ Округѣ. Изданіе Императорской Академіи Наукъ. Вып. І. С.-Петербургъ 1906.

11:1 That of the village Sedanka.

11:2 That of the Okhotsk shore.