Needle
Coordinated Transcriptions: We transcribe the two times that we hear this word from Lolly Metcalf the same way, even though we can detect slight phonetic differences between her first time saying it and her second time saying the word. We also closely coordinate our single transcription of what Lolly says with how Jacobs transcribed the word as he heard it from Annie Miner Peterson. However, we do not hear much of a semivowel [ w ] from Lolly as she pronounces the short first syllable of this word. The first syllable really sounds like [ gʷʊts ] to us, with the Superscript W [ ʷ ] indicating that the lips are rounded to make the voiced stop consonant at the beginning of the syllable, followed by the rounded central vowel [ ʊ ], which is the same phonetic vowel as in the English word ‘good’, without there really being an unrounded central vowel Schwa [ ə ] to be heard.
A matter of Timing: The difference between [ gʷʊts ] and [ gwəts ] is primarily a matter of timing. We suspect that Annie Miner Peterson’s timing as she said this syllable, with its short vowel, was very much like the timing that we hear from Lolly Metcalf as she says the short first syllable of this word.
Instant Phonetic Englishization: gwuhts_koot!.
Robust Ejective: We hear a robust ejective as the final consonant of this word the second time that Lolly’s says the word, instead of the rather light ejective release of the consonant at the end of her first pronunciation of the word. The light ejective release at the end of her first time saying the word could almost be mistaken for light aspiration of the consonant at the end of that first token of the word.