Yet no permanent distinction appears to be maintained among the sounds thus represented, and M. Cuoq reduces them all to the simple _h_. The French nasal sound abounds. M. Cuoq and the earlier English missionaries have expressed it, as in French, simply by the _n_ when terminating a syllable. When it does not close a syllable, a diaeresis above the n, or else the Spanish _tilde (n)_ indicates the sound. Mr. Wright denotes it by a line under the vowel. The later English missionaries express it by a diphthong: _ken_ becomes _kea; nonwa_ becomes _noewa_; _onghwentsya_ is written _oughweatsya_. A strict analysis would probably reduce the sounds of the Canienga language to seven consonants, _h, k, n, r, s, t,_ and _w_, and four vowels, _a, e, i_, and _o_, of which three, _a, e, and o_, may receive a nasal sound. This nasalizing makes them, in fact, distinct elements; and the primary sounds of the language may therefore be reckoned at fourteen. [Footnote: A dental _t_, which the French missionaries represent sometimes by the Greek _theta_ and sometimes by _th_, and which the English have also occasionally expressed by the latter method, may possibly furnish an additional element. The Greek _theta_ of the former is simply the English _w_.] The absence of labials and the frequent aspirated gutturals give to the utterance of the best speakers a deep and sonorous character which reminds the hearer of the stately Castilian speech. The "Book of Rites," or, rather, the Canienga portion of it, is written in the orthography first employed by the English missionaries. The _d_ is frequently used, and must be regarded merely as a variant of the _t_ sound. The _g_ is sometimes, though rarely, employed as a variant of the _k_. The digraph _gh_ is common and represents the guttural aspirate, which in German is indicated by _ch_ and in Spanish by _j_. The French missionaries write it now simply _h_, and consider it merely a harsh pronunciation of the aspirate. The _j_ is sounded as in English; it usually represents a complex sound, which might be analysed into _ts_ or _tsi_; _jathondek_ is properly _tsiatontek_. The _x_, which occasionally appears, is to be pronounced _ks_, as in English. _An, en, on_, when not followed by a vowel, have a nasal sound, as in French. This sound is heard even when those syllables are followed by another _n_. Thus _Kanonsionni_ is pronounced as if written _Kanonsionni_ and _yondennase_ as if written _yondennase_. The vowels have usually the same sound as in German and Italian; but in the nasal _en_ the vowel has an obscure sound, nearly like that of the short _u_ in _but_. Thus _yondennase_ sounds almost as if written _yondunnase_, and _kanienke_ is pronounced nearly like _kaniunke_.