200. This shows the necessity of using points extensively, to prevent a superabundance of primary characters, as the missing sounds occur. Mr. Ellis has devoted a number of years, in various parts of Europe, to the study of the phonetic peculiarities of language, the results of which are given in his Essentials of Phonetics, and his views are worthy of attention. Unfortunately, his alphabet was primarily adapted to English alone, and being intended to replace the ordinary one, the most unjustifiable concessions were made to its corrupt orthography, apparently that the people might be as little shocked as possible, and spared a few hours' study. But whilst phonotypy is framed for the heterotypic readers of a fleeting present, it is admitted (Phonetic News, p. 1, §§ 5, 7) that 'most poor children leave school unable to read with ease,' and that one third of the population of England are unable to read.' They, at least, have no prejudices to conciliate. The common sense of Europe, Polynesia, Africa, and a great portion of America, as well as of those to whom these literary husks are specially offered, (if made acquainted with the merits of the question,) would reject them as barbarisms. Moreover, the unlettered public should not be deprived of the power to pronounce foreign words and sentences, nor the foreigner of that to pronounce English ones.* The excuse, that the powers of the Latin† alphabet are uncertain,' (p. 222,) is neutralized by his own opinion that the Latin vowel-characters had their Italian or German power, ‡ and we find an English author making an adjective HIBERIANA out of the English name Heber.

* Phonetic writing obviously depends upon speech; Mr. Ellis, however, makes both virtually depend upon etymology (pp. 103, 104), as if to preserve the aristocratic distinction between the lettered and the unlettered public. As a consequence, his English depends upon Old English, Latin, or French orthography, so that, to write (and speak) it, one must be acquainted with these languages. Thus he takes minor from the French, and makes it different from miner. So or stands in memory (which he pronounces mem-or-y), and form in réformation; and the words our, power, follow the old spelling, the latter having e in the second syl

lable.

+ Leaving Latin out of view, there must be uniformity somewhere, because the Sandwich-Islander spells the name of one of these islands MAUI, and an English or American missionary, a Spaniard, Portuguese, Italian, German, Choctaw, or West African Mandingo, would do the same.

The " many [English] vowels and consonants which the Latin language is totally unable to represent or to suggest," should have been particularized. Among them are the vowels in net, not, nut, fat. The vowel in fin was perhaps heard in OPTIMUS, as u replaced 1 in a few words; a fact cited by Mr. Ellis to prove that

"When a character has several sounds, it has a special and an accidental power, the former usually found in its alphabetic name. seems plain, that the accidental power should have a new or modified character, and not those which have always been written and recognized. Mr. Ellis assigns to the vowel O the character a closed at the top. He should then, at least, have supplied that in not with a modified character. A character formed like the Greek & (the Latin u) is perverted to a diphthongal power, as if to justify and perpetuate a false pronunciation of Greek.

8

"Mr. Ellis (in conjunction with Mr. Pitman) has proposed, it is said, fifteen alphabets, in which there is a gradual deterioration, the last being the worst. There is a certain relation between the primary vowel in meal and the secondary one in mill, which was recognized by Mr. Ellis in 1844, when the former was represented by I with a horizontal medial line, and the latter by I. The related vowels in dale, dell, were represented by E with the line continued across, and E without a medial line. Now, meal and mill are spelt mel, mil'; whilst dale and dell stand 'dal, del'; and A, the capital of 'a' is reserved for the rare Welsh vowel in fat. Having reached its lowest point of deterioration, this alphabet is brought to a satisfactory conclusion,' and fault is found with those who will not adopt the later changes, termed 'improvements' (p. 220, and Phon. Journ.). When the pure vowel in meal is short (without falling into that of mill), i is employed; which is correct, but inconsistent.

"Mr. Ellis's ethnical alphabet contains 56 characters, including a with a line through it, which is omitted in the table on p. 126. Some of his analyses are very minute, as the middle sound' (pp. 3, 7) between the consonant and vowel of see. On the other hand, his ideas of the relation between the open (and usually long) vowels in paw, fur, pool, lo, and their close (and usually short) condition in naught, worth, full, obey, are very confused. At present, he makes

u had "undoubtedly several sounds" in Latin. He should have informed his unclassical readers, that in these words, according to the ancient grammarians, the I and u had not their true power, but an allied one, for which Claudius proposed a character. Consult Velius Longus, Priscian, and Donatus. The power in question was not the French u, as that was represented by Y. The aperture of the

I in fin is nearer that of U than of I.

* To form the latter, a longer pipe is required than for the former, according to the experiments of Wheatstone. Herschel (Encyc. Metrop.) confesses himself unable to detect any shade of difference" between them.

no distinction between the short vowel in mutter and the long one in murder, chiefly because it would be inconvenient in phonography.* He places the vowel of fall in the first syllable of authority, although, water, fortune, short. The vowel in not is placed in quarter, god, John, hog, horse, wrong, long, beyond, swan. The inconsistency is obvious which demands a different vowel in for and not, and an identical one in fur and nut; a different one in conclude and good; but the same one in endure and duty. In some cases Pitman and Ellis have used at different times both of the vowels in fall, nõt, in the same words, as in talk, George, cross.

"The vowel in pool, smooth, is placed in to (as in to do), into, truth, rule, conclude, Lucian. In most of these examples, the vowel is neither long nor short, but medial, and the aperture is both close and open. The vowel in rule is closer and less labial than that in pool (which is short in boat), and when short it occurs in pull. It is preceded by English y in endure, duty, when not pronounced with the Welsh diphthong iw.

"The discrepancies here noticed arise in some degree from an empirical rule, † (p. 101,) requiring the orthography to represent the ' emphatic utterance of each word as it would be pronounced independently of all other words.' This mode of pronouncing English is common with foreigners. But if to, as in the verb to do, or in heretofore, (Phon. Journal, 1847, p. 283,) is pronounced independently, like too, as when a child spells it, it is a different word, and of no more account for its legitimate purpose than a broken link detached from a chain. Mr. Ellis takes a different view of his own vernacular on page 110, where he states that French syllables upon which no stress is laid are not to be hurriedly or indistinctly pronounced, as in English.'

*This name is applied to a beautiful and useful system of stenography, which, however, is not as philosophical as is generally supposed. The vowels in food, feed, should both have been "first place," and those in far, fall, “third place," so as to form the vocal circle properly. The diphthong in aisle should have been "third place" by its vowel. The vowel-dots, when placed in an angle, cannot be read with certainty. The w and y should each have had an independent character for syllables like the old English wray, or the German glauben when pronounced jlaubn. The character for r (in the labial position) would have been better as m; s as n; tsh as s, &c.

Those least skilled in analysis will insist most upon this rule.

Adelung, quite as good an authority, gives a different rule: -" Schreib wie du sprichst, ist das höchste und vornehmste..... auch das einzige Grundgesetz für die Schrift in allen Sprachen."

“We have seen that Mr. Ellis places different vowels in water and quarter, yet he considers that in boy and the one in quoit identical, admitting no vowel distinction in the diphthongs. In writing diphthongs other than English, he uses a notation which makes them dissyllables, whence it is evident that he does not understand the nature of these compounds. The Nadako, an unwritten language, is very instructive upon this point, as it contains true diphthongs, and their corresponding quasi diphthongs, which Mr. Ellis's theory places in English and German. In this paper it is impossible to represent an exact pronunciation, so that the words must be taken as approximately correct, unless fully described; and the notation is provisional.

"In the Nadako word for cheek, tánkadaus, the last syllable does not rhyme with house, but the vowels are pure, as in the name of the Persian poet Firdausi, both these words having four syllables. The t and k are indifferent,' the n is pure, (not ng,) and all the vowels short. But in behedawso, shoulder, the third syllable is accented, and like the second of endow.

"This language, besides the English diphthong in aisle, (ending with a coalescent, as explained by me in 1847,) has a quasi diphthong similar to it, terminating with the vowel in feet, and another with that in fit.

"The Hesperian* (North American) languages are remarkable for the extent to which they reject the labials (except m and English w), a circumstance which probably has some connection with the coldness of expression of the aborigines; emotions being less likely to affect the countenance, if the lips remain unmoved in speech. † Several Oriental languages, in which the four inner contacts are used, want some of the labials; whilst most of the European ones employ the four outer ones, excluding the glottal.

"In the Lenape ‡ or Delaware language, there is a sound which

"Hesperian, situated at the west." Dict. For scientific purposes, America north of 50° might be called Hudsonia; from this line to the tropic, Hesperia (or Vesperia); the tropical portion, Favonia; from the southern tropic to 50° south, Zephyria; and south of this, Magellania.

In representing a spirit, painters reject the body, preserving a winged head; probably because it is the seat of expression, thought, and the organs of sense.

The a as in far, accented; the e as in pet. Messrs. Pitman and Ellis have maintained that the vowels in pity, net, not, cannot be pronounced except before a consonant. The proper name Konza ends with the vowel in not, that of Choctaw (the c is a literary corruption) has it twice. Mr. Ellis, whilst he denies the VOL. II. 22

1

Mr. Duponceau describes as a whistle, citing the word 'wtehim' as containing it initially. This consonant I have noticed in Cherokee and in Weko (e as in they), in the latter of which it is peculiar in being final as in tav, three, the a as in cart. No grammarian or phonetician has properly analyzed the English wh. Of two opinions concerning it, one gives it as the English w preceded by h, according to which the word when is represented by hwen, by Noah Webster and Ellis. Others consider it a distinct whispered consonant, and Dr. Comstock perverts to its use Q (consecrated to the Oriental qof, at least as early as the building of the pyramids), writing qen for when. The first party is wrong in inserting h, and the second in giving three instead of four sounds.

"Let sonant be represented by a grave, and surd by an acute accentual; and let the Greek aspirate-mark indicate an aspirate, and the lenis a lene consonant. Let the English w be represented by its Latin character V, and the elements of when will stand "v"ven, or in English letters, wh-w-e-n. Mr. Ellis overlooks this sound in his account of Welsh.

*

Mr.

"This succession depends upon a law not hitherto announced, prevailing in the more flowing consonants (the liquids and nasals), which results in a tendency of their surd aspirates to be followed by their lene sonant power. The English interjection hem and German hm (formed with the mouth closed) afford a second example. Ellis writes it 'h'm,' as if it were h preceding m.t N and L take the same phases in Cherokee. In this language, when the ordinary 7 is not interposed, and a vowel follows the aspirate, the vowel is whispered. In Welsh, the whispered element occurs final. The two modes of its occurence have not been recognized by Mr. Ellis.

"I have found whispered vowels, and even syllables, not uncommon in several American languages, as in the two final syllables of the Comanche word for ten, SWANchut; the first syllable of which agrees with send, but nasal; the second with want; the third with the vowel in nut, whispered; and the fourth with that in foot, whispered.

vowels in pit, pet, pat, to the French (p. 109), inserts the characters with which he represents them in his example of this language on p. 156.

* English W and Y bear the same relation to P and K respectively, that L does to T, or R to the palatal contact.

+ Phonetic Journal, 1848, p. 141, 5th line from below. In other cases, the interposed comma indicates a second syllable.