show the greatest amount of admirable work in this field; the English and American missionaries from every quarter of the world, the Russian savans from the Babels of Caucasus and Siberia. I am unwilling to travel beyond the wide domain of the Anglo-Saxon tongue; but, with accumulations of new material, in all cases requiring a phonetic representation, it is impossible to abstain from the expression of a hope that it is not too late to put the whole system of Phonēsis on as broad a basis as possible. For the leading languages of the world a universal alphabet bet is but the dream of an enthusiast. For the languages recently reclaimed from barbarism, and, still more, for those where the reduction of an alphabet is either in progress or prospect, some approach to harmony and unity may be effected. SECTION XLVI. REVIEW OF THE QUESTION. Such is the exposition of that part of the subject which the writer has thought himself best justified in laying before the reader; and it is plain that it forms but one division of the question. Upon the general character of the defects of the most insufficient system of writing in the world, there are works both old and new; not, indeed, in excess of the demands of the subject, nor yet proportionate to them; but still numerous enough to form a small literature; -one, however, of which it is certain that the dimensions must increase. Few who have written on the matter will feel themselves disparaged by a special reference to the work which, in conjunction with the earliest Journal printed in phonetic types, first succeeded in fixing public attention on the reform of which the writer was the advocate,-Mr Ellis's "Plea for Phonetic Spelling." This was, mainly, a classification of the actual, and an anticipation of many possible, objections to it. Between these and its successors (for the greater part, contributions to our periodical literature) little is now left to be done, either in the exposure of the thousand-and-one faults of the present system, or the exposition of the advantages of a phonetic one. It is probable, that, as so many matters of simple fact, they are admitted by even the foremost defenders of things as they are. If so, the time for the enumeration of them is going by. At any rate, I have considered myself justified in taking them for granted. Neither have I cared to go out of my way to denounce them: for it is possible that, flagrant as the demerits of our spelling may be, they have been stripped and whipped according to their deserts. I have, then, taken them, as aforesaid, for granted. Considered as obstacles in the way to knowledge no one thinks worse of them than I do; yet I am sensible that, at the first view, the present treatise, may be mistaken for a palliation, perhaps, for a defence, of them. It tries to account for them; and to account for them is to show that they are neither less nor greater than we should expect to find them; or, in other words, that, given the conditions under which they arose, they are only what they ought to be. This, however, in the most decided way that an admission can be made, admits their existence, so that if further proof of it were required, it would be found in the criticism that explains it. And this method carries us farther than it seems to do. The great theoretical objection is the Etymological; and this, the historical view of the origin of the present system, most especially enables us to meet; for what is the etymology of a word but its history? what its history but its etymology? Important, however, as this branch of the question may be, it is not the one which touches us the nearest. The mere theoretical objections to a change are a trifle. The "lion in the way" is the existing system, and those who should assail it are those whom it most affects-the million, the masses, or whatever else they may be called; the thousands of the present, the tens ofthousands of the rising generation, those to whom time and money are of importance, and that to such an extent that even a boon like primary education may be purchased too dearly. It is these who are, or ought to be, most in earnest in favor of a change; and there is far more danger in their apathy than in the opposition of the learned. There are several facts by which Phoneticism may be recommended; just as there were several upon which objections could be founded. But, just as there was one objection, the etymological, which outweighed all the rest as a point for theoretical discussion, so is there, also, one recommendation which-for the class now addressed-is all-in-all; and that is, its value in primary education, or, to put it in humbler language, the teaching of reading. Symmetry and consistency, and the rational representation of articulate sounds, and other matters of the same kind, may gratify the scholar and the etymologist. Etymologists, however, or comparative philologists, as they best like to be called, unless they have either to teach the alphabet to their own children, or have grown-up sons who may be plucked for dictation, care much more for Metagraphy than for Phonetic Spelling per se. Anything like enthusiasm must be got from them in their character as educationists; and the two attachments by no means, of necessity, go together. The enthusiasm of Mr Ellis and the still unabated perseverance of Mr Pitman, are not likely to be again combined. Not but what everyone of these subordinate applications, and these amateur tastes, has its value in the promotion of the greater end. They are the smaller springs, the ornamental rivulets, which help to swell the impetus of a grand stream which must owe both its main waters and its definite direction to a more unfailing source, and to a stronger power. It is the business and the interest of others to make it both broad and deep, and to direct it towards the machinery for which it is most specially demanded. The Glossic system of Mr Ellis is, in this respect, a good help, though a bad substitute. Of the Shorthand Phonography of Mr Pitman I know less; but I can easily see that, when Mr Ellis tells us that those who have learned shorthand phonetically, will not learn longhand on the present system of spelling, he simply tells us the truth. Metagraphy, and the aspirations for a universal alphabet help us in the same direction; but the paramount power is the one which, founded as it is in the value of Phoneticism for the purposes of primary education, must be derived from the union and the sagacity of the vast masses which it interests. SECTION XLVII. THE WORKING ALPHABET. It has been no part of the present writer's aim to exhaust the subject; still less has it been either within his aim, or his authority, to write in the character of a director or an adviser. What he has done is to exhibit the faults of the present system from a point of view which is, to some extent, a new one. He has assumed that they exist; and that, to an extent which those who have most earnestly impeached the current orthography have not over-rated. He has assumed their existence, and, to a certain extent, excused it. But the excuse has been a condemnation. How these inordinate faults, both of omission and commission are to be rectified, is a matter for the consideration of those whom it affects most. These are not the learned Few who have got over difficulties which they have forgotten, but the unlearned Many who have yet to learn and to say this is to say that it is, solely and wholly, as a matter of Primary Education-in other words the arts of reading and writing-that the question has been treated. The treatise itself is, probably, that of an etymologist. The object, however, is that of the educationistthat of one who looks to the value of the phonetic system in primary education only. The working-out of the special details of such a change as those involved in Phonetic Reform is as different from the theoretical part of it as Administration is different from Legislature; the aptitudes for one, being, by no means, synonymous with the aptitudes for the other. Hence, I have never presumed to give advice-advice, at least, of a positive kind. "Do this" or "do that" are forms of the mperative mood which have not found a place in the treatise; nor will they. At the same time there are certain things which may be recommended not to be done. The first, and foremost of these is (a) Don't do nothing. It is implied in what has preceded that, bad as is our present orthography, it is no worse than the present generation has a right to expect. If, however, with its full know ledge of all these deficiencies, the present generation bequeath it to the next; if those who are most concerned in amending it, either leave the work to be done by others, or to do itself, no such extenuation can be pleaded. If we not only take it as we find it, but are satisfied to keep it as we take it, it is pretty clear that, bad as it is, it is as good a one as we deserve. (b) Don't keep out of the water till you have learnt to swim: this meaning, Don't wait until you have got a Phonetic Alphabet which pleases everybody. An Alphabet is, of all things in the world, the most equivocal. It partly belongs to Science; partly to Art. It is, to a large extent, dependent upon the powers of analysis and comparison, on the part of the constructor; to an extent equally large on his taste for the harmonious and the symmetrical. How often, or rather how rarely, these two qualities in the highest degree are combined in one and the same individual, the history of human thought tells us very plainly. Of the two great divisions, however, the latter presents the more important difficulties. The decomposition of the several words into their articulational elements is a point upon which, in all the cultivated languages of Europe, the work is already done. What remains is the choice, or the invention, of the particular signs by which these are expressed. Now, in its most general terms, an Alphabet of this kind is one of which a cynical sciolist might say that it is an achievement which anyone above six years of age can accomplish. "He could," he might say, "dash down three dozen different combinations of straight lines, curves, and dots, and the thing would be done." He might, perhaps, if he meant to be very contemptuous, say that" the aid of color could be invoked, and that, hat, with only twelve original signs, he might draw them in red, blue, or brown, by making one color denote one dozen of articulations, and another another, and do the whole thing out of twelve combinations. He might, too, by bringing in all the colors of the rainbow, reduce the number of really invented (or applied) signs to a minimum, and so bring printing to the condition of painting." We know that this is neither more nor less than puerile trifling, but there is excuse for introducing it; inasmuch as it shows how easy the construction of an alphabet is from one point of view. Alphabets, under such a freedom from limitations, may, possibly, be constructed at the rate of a letter per minute. Let us, however, take the opposite view. Then, the difficulty becomes as conspicuous as the ease has hitherto been. Paradoxical as it may sound at first, the statement that, so far as the question of new signs (letters) is concerned, construction is easier than improvement, is both true and important: important because, without seeing its full bearing on the present question, we cannot duly appreciate the difficulties with which the modern reformer must contend. With (say) between thirty and forty letters, all coined out of his own brain, he can ensure a due amount of symmetry or harmony among them; so that he has, consequently, nothing to fear from the perception of incongruity on the part of the reader. With a frame work, however, of (say) twenty characters as parts of a well-known alphabet already in use, he has the unsatisfactory task of adapting the new to the old; to avoid what Mr Ellis has called the Strange-appearance objection; an objection which of all the ones that have ever been made against Phonetic Spelling is the hardest to refute. Where a character is too complex or too cumbrous for writing; where it is too indistinct in its outline to be a good indicator of difference; where, from being either so unlike the letter to which it is allied in sound, or so like others with which it has no such affinity, as to suggest an incorrect view of the Phonesis of the language to which it applies, (not to mention other shortcomings of less importance,) there is something definite and tangible upon which an objection may be made, or a defence founded. But the Strange-appearance objection is mainly a matter of taste; and when, of two disputants, one says that such or such a combination of lines displeases, and the other that it pleases, his eye, there is little more to be said on the subject. There is something, indeed, that a dispassionate looker-on might suggest; for he might urge that familiarity or unfamiliarity with the combination might have more to do with its congruity or incongruity than the actual details of its outline. This, no doubt, is true; but the proportion which the two elements bear to one another is not a matter that we can either weigh or measure. Neither is the system itself with which a new letter has to be brought into conformity a simple one: inasmuch as it gives us a great deal more than the mere twenty-five or thirty letters of any particular alphabet. The number of these, whatever it may be, has to be multiplied by four-i.e., for capitals and for small letters, for printing and for manuscript. Respect, too, must be had to the alphabets of other languages; though this is not one of the more important complications: for, upon the whole, our motto in England should be, "English principles for English spelling." Still, where the original orthography is so peculiar as to be exceptional and eccentric when compared with that of other countries, a derivation from the national principle in its strictest form is not only pardonable but imperative. In no part of their work have the constructors of the Phonetic Alphabet shown a sounder judgement than in their treatment of the English vowels. Of a, i, and u, as letters, our pronunciation is pre-eminently exceptional. There is no better proof of this than the abnormal way in which we pronounce what we may call English-Latin, or Latin as it is taught and read in England. General, however, as this eccentric pronunciation may be within the Four Seas, it has been ignored; and the ordinary power given to the exceptional vowels on the Continent has been recognised. There is, in this, not only an anticipation of the charge of imperfect scholarship, but sound sense and legitimate conservatism. When the English is spelt properly, English-Latin will be pronounced, so far as the vowels go, in the only way in which, out of England, it is pronounced at all. |