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SECTION II.

Survey of the Sounds of English Speech, and of the Manner of reprefenting them by written Characters.

THE purpose of alphabetical writing is to reprefent language to the eye, by the signs of elementary founds. For the representation to be perfect, there should be a fign for every elementary found of the language to be repréfented, marking that found only. But a complete alphabet of any language is unknown. Before the art could reach perfection, custom has everywhere fixed the practice; and, for common convenience, an afcertained practice, however imperfect, being preferable to the variation neceffary for attaining perfection, what arbitrary cuftom had once established, science has generally feared afterward to alter. Unfortunately for the English language, custom, diftracted between two widely differing idioms, the Anglo-Saxon, and the Norman-French, has, in fixing its orthography, not only neglected science, but allowed capricious ignorance to riot: Hence it will be neceffary, with ftricter care, to furvey the established representation of the founds of English speech by written characters; to unfold its perplexities; to discover, among its anomalies, what may pafs for rules; and to fix upon a mode of pointing out to the reader, with certain precision,

any

found of the language, of which there may be occafion to treat.

any

In our language, and in moft or perhaps all others, the name LETTER is, in ordinary fpeech, equally given to the elementary found, and to the character reprefenting it; fimple terms failing to diftinguish things fo different. The words ELEMENT to fignify the found, and CHARACTER to fignify its reprefentative, are often of advantageous ufe, but not fo appropriated as to be, on all occafions, fufficiently difcriminating. Care therefore will be requifite to present those two defcriptions of things always clearly feparated to the reader's

view.

Among the elementary founds of speech, divided into VOWELS and CONSONANTS, the vowels hold a great preeminence. A vowel alone may ftand as a fyllable; without a vowel can be no complete articulation; all fonorousness, all sweetness in language arife from vowels.

The SIMPLE VOWEL-SOUNDS, clearly and ftrongly distinguished in English speech, are SEVEN; but the VOWEL - CHARACTERS of the English alphabet are, in effect, only FIVE, a, e, i, o, u; for w and y, as proper vowels, are meer duplicates of u and i.

But the defects in the reprefentation of the vowel-founds, confiderable from real want of diftinguishing characters, have been made very much

greater

greater by perverfe ufe of the characters we poffefs.

The feven vowels of English speech, to ftate them in the order most in use among our grammarians, are,

First, the open or broad found of A, heard in wan, warren, call, falling :

Secondly, the middle found of A, in can, fallow, father, example:

Thirdly, the close, or flender found of A, in tale, famous :

Fourthly, the found of E, in he, evil:

Fifthly, the found of o, in fo, rofy:

Sixthly, the open sound of u, in dull, running, fully:

Seventhly, the close found of v, in bull, fully, truly.

But, beside these seven varieties of simple vowels, there are, in English speech, four proper diphthongs. Borrowing, in part, Walker's definition, I would call a diphthong, "a compound vowel, requiring "more than one conformation of the organs for "utterance;" but, I would proceed, "the dou"ble conformation producing two distinguishable "founds, yet fo fliding one into the other as to "offer no difcernible point of feparation."

Of the four diphthongs of English pronuntiation, two are reprefented by fingle, and two by double characters.

First, the found of 1, in final:

Secondly,

f

Secondly, the found of u, in due, ufual: Thirdly, the found of or, in coin, toilsome : Fourthly, the found of ou, in out, abounding. Y and W, for their diphthongal, as for any fimple vowel-found, are but duplicates of I and W, and fo oy and ow are but duplicates of or and ou. The notations EU, EW, IEU, IEW, and u1, reprefent no other founds than are commonly indicated by u alone. Thus brute differs from fruit, and few from view, only in the found of the first letter; and we write indifferently fewel or fuel. The other diphthongal notations of English orthography, ai, ay, au, aw, ea, ei, eo, ey, ia, ie, oa, mark no diphthongal pronuntiation, (the affirmative ay forms a single exception) nor represent any found in English speech, different from thofe, already noticed, which are commonly reprefented by fingle vowel-characters. As reprefentatives of fimple vowels, they will demand future attention.

The diftinct varieties, then, of VOWEL-SOUNDS in English speech, are no less than ELEVEN; being feven fimple vowels, and four proper diphthongs.

But befide thefe varieties of found, there is a a variety arifing from difference of TIME employed in the enuntiation of the fame found.

Six

f These founds of 1 and u, have been reckoned among diphthongs by Wallis, one of the earliest and the most learned, and by Sheridan and Walker, among the most eminent of the later English grammarians. That they are truly diphthongal, muft, I think, be obvious to any ear fairly attending to them.

Six of the feven vowels of English speech have, in fome fyllables a longer, in others a fhorter TIME, or, in the grammatical word, QUANTITY, appropriated to them. Nor is the difference fmall or unimportant, but, on the contrary, fuch as to give to each decidedly its own character, fo that the diftinction is of the effence of the language. No English voice fails to exprefs, no English ear to perceive, the difference between the long found, for instance, of the second vowel, the middle a, in father, paffing, example, and the fame found, fhort, as the custom of fpeech requires, in fathom, paffive, ample. Were one ufed for the other, we fhould risk to misunderstand the words; we should certainly condemn the pronuntiation. No colloquial familiarity or hurry will fubftitute the fhort proportion of vowel-found for the long; nor will any folemnity of occafion warrant the ufe of the long proportion for the short. In Scottish pronuntiation indeed, often, the Englifh long vowels are fhort, and the fhort long; and this is not least among the causes of difficulty, for fouthern Englishmen, to understand their own language in the pronuntiation of the northern part of the iland. To speak English properly, and to be intelligible, the established proportions of the long and fhort vowels, whatever be the rate of delivery, must be obferved. In just delivery thofe proportions will be found as two to one, or as nearly fo as any menfuration (a matter which

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