The phonology of the Iroquois languages is notable in other respects besides those already referred to. According to M. Cuoq, an able philologist, who has laboured for many years as a missionary among the Iroquois of the Province of Quebec, the sounds are so simple that he considers an alphabet of twelve letters sufficient for their indication: _a_, _e_, _f_, _h_, _i_, _k_, _n_, _o_, _r_, _s_, _t_, _w_. The transliterations noticeable in the various Iroquois dialects, follow a well-known phonetic law. Thus the _l_ and _r_ are interchangeable, as _ronkwe_, “man,” in the Mohawk, becomes in the Oneida _lonhwe_; _raxha_, “boy,” becomes _laxha_; _rakeniha_, “my father,” becomes _lakenih_, etc. The same is seen throughout the compound numerals from “eleven” onward. The Cayuga and Tuscarora most nearly approach to the Mohawk in this use of the _r_. A characteristic change of a different kind is seen in the grammatical value of the initial _r_ in the Mohawk in relation to gender. For example, _onkwe_ is applied to mankind, as distinguished from _karyoh_, “the brute.” It becomes _ronkwe_, “man,” _yonkwe_ “woman.” So also _raxah_, “boy,” changes to _kaxha_, “girl”; _rihyeinah_, “my son,” to _kheyenah_, “my daughter,” etc. The change of gender is further illustrated in such examples as _raohih_, his apple; _raoyen_, his arrow; _ahkohih_, her apple; _ahkoyen_, her arrow; _raonahih_ (masc.), _aonahih_ (fem.), their apples; _raodiyenkwireh_ (masc.), _aodiyenkwireh_ (fem.), their arrows, etc. But this arrangement of the formative element as a prefix is characteristic of American languages, though not peculiar to them. Thus _Seshatsteaghseragwekough_, Almighty God (literally, “Thou who hast all power, or strength”), becomes, in the third person, _Rashatsteaghseragwekough_. The vowel sounds are very limited. No distinction is apparent in any Huron-Iroquois language between the _o_ and the _u_. In writing it the _e_ and _u_ sounds are also often interchangeable. Where, for example, _e_ is used in one set of the Tuscarora numerals supplied to me, another substitutes _u_ for it wherever it is followed by an _n_; e.g. _enjih_, _unjih_; _ahsenh_, _ahsunh_; _endah_, _undah_, etc. So also the word for “man” is written for me in one case _onkwe_, and in another _unkweh_. It requires an acute and practised ear to discriminate the niceties of Indian pronunciation, and a no less practised tongue to satisfy the critical native ear. Dr. Oronhyatekha, when pressed to define the value of the _t_ sound in his own name, replied “It is not quite _t_ nor _d_.” The name is compounded of _oronya_, “blue,” the word used in the Prayer-Book for “heaven,” and _yodakha_, “burning.” In very similar terms, Asikinack, an educated Odahwah Indian, when asked by me whether we should say Ottawa, or Odawa—the Utawa of Morris’s “Canadian Boat Song,”—replied that the sound lay between the two,—a nicety discernible only by Indian ears.