Part 17 (1/2)
But _Kirkha he had Dr Rush on his side, has philosophically taken their na_” But he is wrong here by his own showing: he should rather have called it a _triphthong_ He says, ”By pronouncing in a very deliberate and perfectly natural _,) the _unpractised_ student will perceive, that the sound produced, is co, of the obscure sound of _oo_ as heard in _oo_-ze, which sound rapidly slides into that of _i_, and then advances to that of _ee_ as heard in _e_-ve, _and_ on which it gradually passes off into silence”--_Kirkham's Elocution_, p 75
Thus the ”unpractised student” is taught that _b-y_ spells _bwy_; or, if pronounced ”very deliberately, _boo-i-ee_!” Nay, this grammatist makes _b_, not a labial mute, as Walker, Webster, Cobb, and others, have called it, but a nasal subtonic, or seutturalits na proved, that ”consonants are capable of for this little monosyllable _by_ into _b-oo-i-ee!_ In this way, it is the easiest thing in the world, for such a man to outface Aristotle, or any other divider of the letters; for he _es ”Boy,” says the teacher of Kirkham's Elocution, ”describe the protracted sound of _y_”--_Kirkham's Elocution_, p 110 The pupil er or more complex sound, than what is heard in the word _eye_, or in the vowel _i_; but the book which I study, describes it otherwise I know not whether I can make you understand it, but I will _tr-oo-i-ee_” If the word _try_, which the author uses as an example, does not exhibit his ”protracted sound of _y_,”
there is no word that does: the sound is a norance
OBS 6--In the large print above, I have explained the principal classes of the letters, but not all that are spoken of in books It is proper to inform the learner that the _sharp_ consonants are _t_, and all others after which our contracted preterits and participles require that _d_ should be sounded like _t_; as in the words faced, reached, stuffed, laughed, triuhed, reaped, nipped, piqued, missed, wished, earthed, betrothed, fixed The _flat_ or _smooth_ consonants are _d_, and all others hich the proper sound of _d_ ed, sealed, filled, aimed, crammed, pained, planned, feared, marred, soothed, loved, dozed, buzzed The _labials_ are those consonants which are articulated chiefly by the lips; a which, Dr Webster reckons _b, f, m, p_, and _v_ But Dr Rush says, _b_ and _m_ are nasals, the latter, ”purely nasal”
[95] The _dentals_ are those consonants which are referred to the teeth; the _nasals_ are those which are affected by the nose; and the _palatals_ are those which co_ But these last-naht it worth while to notice _ the others, as whether _h_ is a semivowel, or a mute, or neither
OBS 7--The Cherokee alphabet, which was invented in 1821, by See-quo-yah, or George Guess, an ingenious but wholly illiterate Indian, contains eighty-five letters, or characters But the sounds of the language are much fewer than ours; for the characters represent, not simple tones and articulations, but _syllabic sounds_, and this number is said to be sufficient to denote thee amount to some thousands I suppose, from the account, that _See-quo-yah_ writes his nae, with three letters; and that characters so used, would not require, and probably would not admit, such a division as that of vowels and consonants One of the Cherokees, in a letter to the Ae of thisis so easily acquired, that one who understands and speaks the language, ”can learn to read in a day; and, indeed,” continues the writer, ”I have known so It is only necessary to learn the different sounds of the characters, to be enabled to read at once In the English language, we must not only first learn the letters, but to spell, before reading; but in Cherokee, all that is required, is, to learn the letters; for they have _syllabic sounds_, and by connecting different ones together, a word is fore can do so, and both read and write, so soon as they can learn to trace with their fingers the forms of the characters I suppose that e, and are thereby enabled to acquire much valuable information, hich they otherould never have been blessed”--_W
S Coodey_, 1831
OBS 8--Fro account, it would appear that the Cherokee language is a very peculiar one: its words must either be very few, or the proportion of polysyllables very great The characters used in China and japan, stand severally for _words_; and their number is said to be not less than seventy thousand; so that the study of a whole life is scarcely sufficient tois represented by Dr Blair as a great i far inferior to that which is properly _alphabetic_, like ours ”The first step, in this new progress,” says he, ”was the invention of an alphabet of syllables, which probably preceded the invention of an alphabet of letters, a some of the ancient nations; and which is said to be retained to this day, in Ethiopia, and so upon a particular e, the nu, was reduced within a e Still, however, the nureat; andvery laborious arts Till, at last, so the sounds made by the human voice, to their most simple elements, reduced the to each of these, the signs whichcall letters, taughtall the different words, or co reduced to this sihest state of perfection; and, in this state,enjoy it in all the countries of Europe”--_Blair's Rhetoric_, Lect VII, p 68
OBS 9--All certain knowledge of the sounds given to the letters by Moses and the prophets having been long ago lost, a strange dispute has arisen, and been carried on for centuries, concerning this question, ”Whether the Hebrew letters are, or are not, _all consonants_:” the vowels being supposed by some to be suppressed and understood; and not written, except by _points_ of comparatively late invention The discussion of such a question does not properly belong to English grammar; but, on account of its curiosity, as well as of its analogy to some of our present disputes, I mention it Dr Charles Wilson says, ”After we have sufficiently known the figures and names of the letters, the next step is, to learn to enunciate or to pronounce them, so as to produce articulate sounds On this subject, which appears at first sight very plain and simple, numberless contentions and varieties of opinion meet us at the threshold From the earliest period of the invention of written characters to represent hue, however more or less remote that time may be, it seems absolutely certain, that the distinction of letters into _vowels and consonants_ ra leave only to premise this observation, that I absolutely and unequivocally deny the position, that all the letters of the Hebrew alphabet are consonants; and, after the ive it as my opinion, that of the twenty-two letters of which the Hebrew alphabet consists, five are vowels and seventeen are consonants The five vowels by name are, Aleph, He, Vau, Yod, and Ain”--_Wilson's Heb
Gram_, pp 6 and 8
III POWERS OF THE LETTERS
The powers of the letters are properly those eleures are used to represent; but letters forht independently of sound The sie are few, commonly not more than _thirty-six_;[96]
but they may be variously _combined_, so as to form words innumerable
Different vowel sounds, or vocal ele the ue in a peculiar manner for each; but the voice may vary in loudness, pitch, or time, and still utter the same vowel power
The _vowel sounds_ which forht therefore to be perfectly familiar to every one who speaks it, are those which are heard at the beginning of the words, _ate, at, ah, all, eel, ell, isle, ill, old, on, ooze, use, us_, and that of _u_ in _bull_
In the formation of syllables, soether, as in _ay, oil, out, owl_; and all of them may be preceded or followed by certain ue, which will severally convert them into other tered into a new series of words by an _f_; as, _fate, fat, far, fall, feel, fell, file, fill, fold, fond, fool, fuse, fuss, full_ Again, into as many more with a _p_; as, _pate, pat, par, pall, peel, pell, pile, pill, pole, pond, pool, pule, purl, pull_ Each of the vowel sounds may be variously expressed by letters About half of them are sometimes words: the rest are seldom, if ever, used alone even to form syllables But the readerto the foregoing series Let us note theh, ~a, ah, awe, =eh, ~e, eye, ~i, oh, ~o, oo, yew, ~u,Thus the eight long sounds, _eigh, ah, awe, eh, eye, oh, ooh, yew_, are, or may be, words; but the six less vocal, called the short vowel sounds, as in _at, et, it, ot, ut, put_, are commonly heard only in connexion with consonants; except the first, which is perhaps the iven to the word _a_, perhaps enerally; as in the phrase, ”twice _~a_ day”
The silish are twenty-two: they are , p, r, s, sh, t, th sharp, th flat, v, w, y, z_, and _zh_ But _zh_ is written only to show the sound of other letters; as of _s_ in _pleasure_, or _z_ in _azure_
All these sounds are heard distinctly in the folloords: _buy, die, fie, guy, high, kie, lie, h, thy, vie, we, ye, zebra, seizure_ Again: most of them may be repeated in the same word, if not in the sa, cackle, lily, , pippin, mirror, hissest, flesh-brush, tittle, thinketh, thither, vivid, al, union,[97]
dizzies, vision_
With us, the consonants J and X represent, not simple, but complex sounds: hence they are never doubled J is equivalent to _dzh_; and X, either to _ks_ or to _gz_ The forins none To the initial X of foreign words, ays give the simple sound of Z; as in _Xerxes, xebec_
The consonants C and Q have no sounds peculiar to themselves Q has always the power of _k_ C is hard, like _k_, before _a, o_, and _u_; and soft, like _s_, before _e, i_, and _y_: thus the syllables, _ca, ce, ci, co, cu, cy_, are pronounced, _ka, se, si, ko, ku, sy_ _S_ before _c_ preserves the former sound, but coalesces with the latter; hence the syllables, _sca, sce, sci, sco, scu, scy_, are sounded, _ska, se, si, sko, sku, sy_ _Ce_ and _ci_ have sometimes the sound of _sh_; as in _ocean, social_ _Ch_ commonly represents the compound sound of _tsh_; as in _church_
G, as well as C, has different sounds before different vowels G is always hard, or guttural, before _a, o_, and _u_; and generally soft, like _j_, before _e, i_, or _y_: thus the syllables, _ga, ge, gi, go, gu, gy_, are pronounced _ga, je, ji, go, gu, jy_
The possible combinations and mutations of the twenty-six letters of our alphabet, are many millions of millions But those clusters which are unpronounceable, are useless Of such as h for all the purposes of useful writing, or the recording of speech
Thus it is, that from principles so few and simple as about six or seven and thirty plain elementary sounds, represented by characters still fee derive such a variety of oral and written signs, as may suffice to explain or record all the senties
OBSERVATIONS
OBS 1--A knowledge of sounds can be acquired, in the first instance, only by the ear No description of the manner of their production, or of the differences which distinguish theible to hi, acquired a knowledge of both What I here say of the sounds of the letters, must of course be addressed to those persons only who are able both to speak and to read English Why then attee on the part of the pupil, must alike render useless? I have supposed some readers to have such an acquaintance with the powers of the letters, as is but loose and imperfect; sufficient for the accurate pronunciation of so the perhaps to all the sounds of the language, but not to a ready analysis or enumeration of them Such persons may profit by a written description of the powers of the letters, though no such description can equal the clear i voice Teachers, too, whose business it is to aid the articulation of the young, and, by a patient inculcation of elementary principles, to lay the foundation of an accurate pronunciation, may derive some assistance from any notation of these principles, which will help their memory, or that of the learner The connexion between letters and sounds is altogether _arbitrary_; but a few positions, being assumed and made known, in respect to some characters, become easy standards for further instruction in respect to others of si instructed at an early age, to pronounce with distinctness and facility all the elee, has been so frequently urged, and is so obvious in itself, that none but those who have been theard the claims of their children in this respect[98] But surely an accurate knowledge of the ordinary powers of the letters would be vastly ence respecting the manner in which these important rudiments are learned The utterance of the illiterate may exhibit wit and native talent, but it is always e of orthography For pronunciation and orthography, however they e especially, to be often at variance, are certainly correlative: a true knowledge of either tends to the preservation of both Each of the letters represents some one or more of the elementary sounds, exclusive of the rest; and each of the eleh several of them are occasionally transferred, has some one or two letters to which it s But borrowed, as our language has been, froreat variety of sources, to which it is desirable ever to retain theit, there is certainly much apparent lack of correspondence between its oral and its written form Still the discrepancies are fehen compared with the instances of exact conformity; and, if they are, as I suppose they are, unavoidable, it is as useless to complain of the trouble they occasion, as it is to think of forcing a reconciliation The wranglers in this controversy, can never agree araphy shall conforraphy Nor does any one of thee would either sound or look, were he himself appointed sole arbiter of all variances between our spelling and our speech
OBS 3--”Language,” says Dr Rush, ”was long ago analyzed into its alphabetic ele language has, with the best success, been conducted upon the rudi all the vocal elements under complete command, that they ant delineation of the sense and sentiain, of ”the pronunciation of the alphabetic elements,” he says, ”The least deviation _from the assumed standard_ converts the listener into the critic; and I a within bounds when I say, that for everywords are lost to the greater part of an audience”--_Ibid_, p 350 These quotations plainly i the pronunciation of our language analytically by reeably to the standard assurammarians The first of them affir to so their sounds And yet, both before and afterwards, we find this sa of our alphabet and its subdivisions, as if sense or philosophy raphy, as if a ploughht teach us to spell better: and, at the sah modesty ”The deficiencies, redundancies, and confusion, of the systee, prevent the adoption of its subdivisions in this essay”--_Ib_, p 52 Of the specific sounds given to the letters, he says, ”The first of these matters is under the rule of every body, and therefore is very properly to be excluded from the discussions of that philosophy which desires to be effectual in its instruction How can we hope to establish a systereat masters in criticism condemn at once every attempt, in so siraphy!”--P 256 Again: ”I _deprecate noticing_ the faults of speakers, in the pronunciation of the alphabetic elements It is better for criticism to be modest on this point, till it has the sense or independence to make our alphabet and its uses, look more like the work of what is called--wise and transcendent humanity: till the pardonable variety of pronunciation, and the _true spelling by the vulgar_, have satirized into reforraphy for no other purpose, as one can divine, than to boast of a very questionable merit as a criterion of education”--_Ib_, p 383
OBS 4--How far these views are coe And it is hoped he will excuse the length of the extracts, froreat master of the ”pen-craft” here ridiculed, a noted stickler for needless Kays and Ues, now cora the old explanation of the alphabetic elements to ”more than one hundred thousand children and youth,” is also vending under his own name an abstract of the new scheme of ”_tonicks, subtonicks_, and _atonicks_;” and, in one breath, bestowing superlative praise on both, in order, as it would see those who have successfully laboured in the philological field, _Mr Lindley Murray_ stands forth in bold relief, as undeniably at the head of the list”--_Kirkham's Elocution_, p
12 ”The modern candidate for oratorical faround, than that occupied by the young and aspiring Athenian; especially since a _correct analysis of the vocal organs_, and a faithful record of their operations, have been given to the world by _Dr James Rush_, of Philadelphia--a name that will _outlive_ the unquarried marble of our mountains”--_Ibid_, p 29 ”But what is to be said when presumption pushes itself into the front ranks of elocution, and thoughtless friends undertake to support it? The fraud o on, till presumption quarrels, as often happens, with its own friends, or with itself, and thus dissolves the spell of its merits”--_Rush, on the Voice_, p 405