Part 1 (2/2)

S s S s ess

T t T t tee

U u U u u (or va)

V v V v v conson

Wdouble u

X x X x ex

Y y Y y wy

Z z Z z zed

To these may be added certain co; as, fl, ff, fi, ffi, ffl, and &, or and per se, and

Our letters are commonly reckoned twenty-four, because anciently i and j as well as u and v were expressed by the same character; but as those letters, which had always different powers, have now different forms, our alphabet may be properly said to consist of twenty-six letters

Vowels are five, a, e, i, o, u

Such is the nuenerally received; but for i it is the practice to write y in the end of words, as thy, holy; before i, as fro; in the words says, days, eyes; and in words derived froinally with ?, as sympathy, s?pa?e?a, system, s?st?a

For u we often write w after a vowel, to ; lowness

The sounds of all the letters are various

In treating on the letters, I shall not, like soinal of their form, as an antiquarian; nor into their forans of speech, as a ist; nor into the properties and gradation of sounds, or the elegance or harshness of particular coralish; and even in this narrow disquisition I follow the exaralish I suppose e, and consequently able to pronounce the letters of which I teach the pronunciation; and because of sounds in general it may be observed, that words are unable to describe them An account, therefore, of the primitive and simple letters, is useless, almost alike to those who know their sound, and those who know it not

OF VOWELS

A

A has three sounds, the slender, open, and broad

A slender is found inin ation, as creation, salvation, generation

The a slender is the proper English a, called very justly by Erpenius, in his Arabick Gra a middle sound between the open a and the e The French have a similar sound in the word pais, and in their e masculine

A open is the a of the Italian, or nearly reselass

A broad resembles the a of the German; as all, wall, call

Many words pronounced with a broad were anciently written with au; as sault, mault; and we still say, fault, vault This was probably the Saxon sound, for it is yet retained in the northern dialects, and in the rustick pronunciation; as maun for man, haund for hand

The short a approaches to the a open, as grass