may have been formerly. Here the tonic accent is quite unimportant and many would hardly notice it. The principal thing is to clearly define every syllable it and pronounce it distinctly.
But both the differences in dialect now mentioned are found among the Ainu of Saghalien but in a more emphasized manner. The chief difficulty in a Yezo Ainu understanding a man from Saghalien—and it was at first my own difficulty also—arises from the marked tones the people impose upon their words. Thus, while we say in Yezo Ainu wakka ta wa ek, “go and draw some watar,” smoothly and without accent, a Saghalien Ainu would, though using the identical words, emphatically intone or accent every syllable; indeed, with my eyes closed and no knowledge of Ainu I should, refering to these tones, say he was speaking some dialect of Chinese. And I say this advisedly, remembering that before coming to Yezo I had several months study of the Cantonese dialect of Chinese in Hongkong under the guidance of competent teachers. Saghalien Ainu, in so far as pronounciation is concerned, used certainly to remind me of the Chinese language whenever I heard a native speaking it. At the present time, however, the tones are being lost and a Russian sound given to many of the consonants.
But to mention Yezo and Saghalien vocabulary. There is also a marked difference in the use of words here. Thus in Yezo the word for “sun” is chup, while in Saghallen it is tombe. Tombe is a compound word meaning in Yezo Ainu “the shiner.” Further, in Yezo the ordinary word for “fire” is abe; in Saghalien it is unchi, fuji, unji, hunji or funchi, according to the taste of the speaker, But in Yezo Ainu—unchi, huchi, unji or fuji is only applied to “fire” when it is being worshipped. Indeed, it stands for the “goddess of fire.” Among the Saghalien Ainu the word for fresh-water “ice” is ru, while in Yezo the word used is konru. Apu is Saghalien Ainu for “sea-ice” or “floe,” a word which occurs in place-names in Yezo, among whom apu seems to mean “broken ice along the sea-coast.” Again, among the Saghalien Ainu the words for “hare” are first Oshuke and then kaikuma while in most parts of Yezo
