Although closely related with the Penobscot and the St. Francis dialects, Wawenock has some distinctive qualities of its own. The list of sounds is as follows: | p, b, m | are normal as in English. | | n, l | alveolar-dental in position. | | l | alveolar-dental lateral surd. | | t, d | alveolar-dentals, somewhat indeterminate in quality. | | k, g | medial palatals, indeterminate in quality. k`? is k followed by aspiration and lip closure; g? also occurs.46 | | tc | affricative medial surd. | | dj | affricative medial sonant. | | s, z | in position same as in English, indeterminate in sonant quality. | | ? | palatal nasal, like ng of English sing. | | h, w, y | as in English. | | a, i, o, u | normal, medium length. | | e | open, as e in English met. | | e | long, between e and Ä, as in North German bÄr. | | i· | long closed vowel like English ee. | | ? | longer than o, almost like au in English taut. | | a | short a, like u of English but. | | ? | short obscure vowel of uncertain quality. | | , | denotes nasalized vowels (a?, a?, Ó?). | | ` | denotes aspiration following sound. | | · | denotes lengthened vowel or consonant. | | ´ | primary stress. | | ` | secondary stress. | Two stop consonants coming together have a slight vocalic pause, sometimes amounting to ?, between them. The vowels e, i, a, o, u before stops have a tendency to show a slight aspiration following them. This quality, however, is hardly noticeable in Wawenock in comparison with Penobscot or Malecite. Where words differ in spelling in different places it is because they were recorded as they were pronounced each time. Wawenock appears to have been intermediate dialectically as well as geographically between Penobscot and St. Francis Abenaki (Aroosaguntacook and Norridgewock). In phonetic make-up it has the predominating e, e, vowel where in St. Francis a and in Penobscot e occurs, though resembling Penobscot more. Wawenock Gluska?be, St. Francis Gulska?ba´, Penobscot Gluska?´be; Wawenock be·´nam, St. Francis p`ha´nam, Penobscot p`he´nam. “woman.” The dental quality of the alveolar consonants (n, t, d, l) is something of an individuality to Wawenock. It is totally foreign to Penobscot and the dialects eastward, while the St. Francis pronunciation shows it in t, d, and the affricatives. Wawenock, like St. Francis Abenaki, has the final syllable stress. Like St. Francis it also lacks the distinct aspiration following vowels preceding stops and affricatives so noticeable in Penobscot. Syntactically Wawenock uses more independent word forms than Penobscot but it is not quite so analytic as the St. Francis dialect. In vocabulary Wawenock employs some nouns and verbs which are found in Penobscot and not in St. Francis and vice versa—perhaps more of the former. Modal and adverbial forms are more like those of St. Francis. There is nothing in grammar, so far as I could ascertain, that is really distinct from both the two related dialects; consequently the intermediate position of the dialect seems well established. Its intermediate complexion has led to an anomalous classification among the Indians themselves. The Penobscot associate Wawenock with the St. Francis dialect, while the latter reciprocate by classing it with Penobscot. As a final consideration it might be added that intercourse with the St. Francis people has been too irregular to have influenced the idiom in recent years, hence the intermediary characteristics of the dialect seem genuine properties, not of a kind acquired since the migration of the tribe from its old home in Maine.
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