Imatges de pàgina
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not unlike the Swedish one. In pronouncing schism and schismatic as sizm and sizmatic we ignore the h and sound the sc as in scissors. But does this establish a rule? We have seen that it fails to do this with scheme where the ch=k. Will these two words between them give us a rule; that is, will scheme tell us the power of sche wherever it may occur? We naturally expect that it will. But it will not. What do we learn from the word schedule? We certainly learn that the power of sch is very variable. The ordinary pronunciation gives, I believe, shedule; but both skedule after the manner of scheme and seddule have their supporters. Schist, a geological term, and as such, one of recent introduction, is certainly sounded shist; though, as in schism, the chis followed by i. It is probable that the time at which the particular word was introduced into our language, the language from which it was directly and immediately taken, and the class of speakers who first approved and promulgated it, have more to do with the particular power which this unmanageable combination assumes, than anything relating to the constitution of the language itself. These, however, are just the conditions which it is most difficult to reduce to rule.

SECTION XXIX.

THE SUBSTITUTION OF C FOR K CONTINUED. THE PARALLELISM BETWEEN C AND G, CH AND J.

Having hitherto treated e in its capacity of a substitute for k, as a single letter, we have said as much as is required concerning it; and, evidently, we have said a great deal. And we can see the reason why. We can see that if e had never come into the alphabet at all, a great many complexities and contrivances would have been avoided. We may believe that if it had come in concurrently with k, some of these might have been avoided. We may see, moreover, that either with or without k, it would have been less effective, for bad, if it had been admitted without any reference to its use in indicating the connection of words like city, etc., with civitas, etc., that is, made subservient to the secondary object of etymology.

We have seen, however, that neither k nors stands alone; and, also, that the nearest congeners of kare gandz respectively. Of these the former most especially commands our attention, because, to a certain extent, its history is parallel to that of e, and in certain points of detail, diverges from it. Both cand g, however, change their sound according to the broadness or slenderness of the vowel which follows them. The change, however, of e is the more constant. In gig and gibberish for instance, the g is sounded as in gun. Again, c as we know, changes to s (city=sity), and if the parallelism were perfect g would become z. On the contrary, however, it becomes tor dzh, which I hold to be the same in both cases. With this we must compare tsh, or the sound of the chin chest. And here I hold that the changes in the two cases run parallel :

1. Ka, kya, ksha, tsha.

2. Ga, gya, gzha, dzha.

Now, I am not at present investigating the actual history of either of the English sounds ch or j. I am merely indicating the extent to which the sounds of k and g are affected by the character of the vowel by which they are succeeded. Each gives birth to a compound sibilant; and, I believe, each, when it does this, goes through the same sequence of changes: by which I mean that every k which ends in becoming tsh has been, during the process of transformation, both ky and ksh; and that every g in like manner becomes, in the first instance, gy, and in the second, gzh. I do not, however, hold that every tsh and every dzh have been originally k and g respectively, inasmuch as they can be developed out of t and das independent roots. For instance :

1. Ta, tya, tsha.

2. Da, dya, dzha.

SO

Now we have tsh's and dzh's of both kinds in English, but they are treated very differently in our orthography. The sound given to u, yoo, and ew, after t and d as in nature, verdure, dew, when pronounced natshur, verdzhur, and dzhew, has already been noticed. That this is condemned as a vulgarism I admit. I may also add that, according to the information of Mr Pitman, who, from having exhibited the so-called vulgarism phonetically, and subsequently recognised the ordinary pronounciation, is a good authority on the matter, the practice of s sounding the combination is on the decrease-perhaps passing away altogether. It may be so. It is possible that with so many of us reading and writing and cultivating our pronunciation, the influence of the orthoepists may succeed in checking the tendency to change; and if they do this they will, to some small extent, have succeeded in what is called the fixation of some part of the language. I do not care to prophecy upon this point. I only know that ka and ga, ta and da at the beginning of the series, and that tsha and dzha at the end, are, comparatively speaking, stable combinations; and that ky and ksh, gy and gzh, ty and dy, in the middle, are, comparatively speaking, remarkably unstable ones. If then, I were to prophecy at all, it would be in favor of the vulgar pronunciation eventually winning. Hitherto, however, the compound sibilants, (the ch's and j's,) which have arisen out of t and d, have been left alone; indeed we may say that their claim to a spelling of their own has been ignored. The existence, however, of two converging series of phonetic processes by which we get a double origin for our compound sibilants should be recognised. Thus much, however, may probably be said with safety, and to the credit of ch and j, namely, that wherever we find them we may assume that the original simple consonants out of which they were developed were k and g, not t'or d.

The lines, however, which we have just traced are, by no means, the only ones. From the sound of kwe get that of s, simply. From that of g we get, in an equally simple form, the sound of z. In their tendencies to undergo this kind of change the two sounds vary. Both, as we have seen, pass into the compound sibilants, tsh and dzh. K, however, passes into s as well. G, on the other hand, has no such tendency to become z. There is want, then, of parallelism here. It can, however, be explained. G has an affinity which shas not; one which attracts it in another direction. The tendencies of g, when they are not towards dzh, are towards y, (ga, ya).

With this view of the phonesis it is mere surplusage to condemn the use of ch and j on philosophical grounds. One of them is a digraph; the other a single letter; and it is impossible that both can be right. Each, indeed, may be wrong.

Centers into the composition of both our compendiums æ and q; and, in each, it is brought in comparison with g. Of x, the sound is that of ks or gz, as the case may be. At the beginning of syllables, where it is found in only a few words, such as Xenophon, Xerxes, Xylography, it is sounded as z. The charge of ambiguity against a compendium like æ, is a grave one. Ks we can understand, and gz we can understand, when they are written separately. X, too, as a single sign, we can understand when we know that it represents either ks or gz exclusively. But we cannot understand it when it sometimes stands for the one, and sometimes for the other. And this is what a does in English. The action and re-action between e and g is shown in the words which end in ue, as "antique,” and "unique" on the one side, and "rogue" or "prorogue" on the other. The qu in these combinations represents cu; so that the two forms run parallel. The use of these forms is purely conventional, artificial, and non-natural; especially that in which gappears. It is, also, as far as our own language is concerned, of French origin. The precedent was established by the forms in c (q); which in words like loquor, liquor, and others, belonging to the Latin language, seemto have represented a real sound, seem to have had a basis in reality; and the words just quoted may have been sounded nearly as they are spelt. The same was, probably, the case with the gu in anguis. Still, the g was separable from the u; which the q was not. The tendency of this was to invest qu with the character of a single letter when it preceded a small vowel as in que, qui, (ke, ki); with that of the combination cw when followed by a broad one, as in quoi, quand, etc. This, again, is an assertion of the old law, by which the character of the subsequent vowel, determines the power, or import, of c. One step more, however, is wanted, before the parallelism between the final cand the final qu becomes complete. This is a determinant, like the kin "frantick," as it has been explained in Section 25. It has no sound of its own; but it fixes the sound of the consonant which precedes. The mute e does this; making words like "antique, prologue,” etc., sound as if they ended in -ic, -ōg. At the same time the combination indicated the longness of the vowel. Such is the history of the terminations -oque and -ique. Mutatis mutandis, it is that of -ogue and -igue (intrigue) also.

Now this we may take as the typical instance of what we have called an orthographical expedient; a remedy for, or a palliation of, some fundamental deviation from the plain straightforward line of phonetic representation. I do not think that the word non-natural is too strong a term for such manœuvres or manipulations. There are, doubtless, expedients and expedients: there are expedients of different degrees of conventionalism, artificiality, or non-naturalness. Of these the combination se, may, possibly, be the most innocent. The forms in que and gue are certainly the least so. One merit, indeed, they possess. They are un-English. They are French. So that we got them ready-made; and when we have said this in their favor we have said all. Let us measure the non-naturalness of the combinations before us. If any rule in phonetic spelling be thorough-going, it is that the number of syllables should, in no case, exceed the number of vowels. The diphthongs are no exception, inasmuch as in the sounds of i (a+i), ow (a+u), ew (i+w), and oi (o+i), the second sound is not that of the fundamental vowel, but of a corresponding semi-vowel, y or was the case may be. This, of course, gives us ay, oy, iw, and aw; so that the rule is adhered to. In the Phonetic Journal this is not the orthography. Taking his cue from the old alphabet, Mr Pitman prints and a by single letters, and ou, oi by two letters. Granting these two exceptions, which arose, I am informed, from the difficulty of inventing new and homogeneous forms of letters, and the necessity of not extending the alphabet beyond the number of letters absolutely necessary for the phonetic representation of English, the number of the vowels and the syllables agree. What, however, are we to say to such a form as antique, where the number of syllables is two, that of the vowels four? In Greek, the word would be spelt αντηκ; and what can be done in Greek can be done in English, -" antik."

Now it is not too much to say, that every detail that can be found in this and the preceding sections on the subject, -every detail connected with the substitution of c fork, is non-natural. The details themselves are numerous and complex enough; but their badness lies less in the number than in their non-natural character. Such, indeed, is the predominant character of everything connected with the letter under notice.

SECTION XXX.

THE REDUCIBILITY OF NON-NATURAL MODES TO RULE, OF LITTLE PRACTICAL VALUE.

But it may be said that all these expedients can be reduced to rule. Be it so. We have hitherto said much of certain vowels

w,

which are called broad, and others which are called small or slender. We have not, however, done so as if the terms were merely indicative of some abstract quality. We have generally told the reader that the broad vowels are a, o, and u; the small, or slender ones, i and e. The letter y belongs to the same class; but as it is not always a true vowel, it has not, as a rule, been mentioned. It is a semi-vowel as well; and as it takes its place in a dictionary as such it has been classed, along with (which is never a vowel) as a consonant; at any rate, as something intermediate between the two classes. I believe that the number of true vowels in English is generally counted as five. We make it six by counting y; but, then, there will be only one semi-vowel; and of these there are two, w and y. Hence, y is an occasional or accidental vowel-not a true, not a thorough-going, not an invariable one. Be this, however, as it may, we have the fact that a, o, and u belong to one class, i and eto another; and that broad and small (or slender), indicate these classes.

I use, then, these words; and instead of naming five vowels in detail, give the names of two classes over which they may be distributed; the one of which consists of three members, the other of two. But, before I can make any use of the more general term, I must explain what it means. This, however, is not done in a moment. Perhaps, between the explanation and the remembrance of it, it takes up, between the teacher and the learner, more time than would be taken up by the simple exhibition of details; which, after all, are only five in number. What, then, is the value of the rule; or how far is it more compendious or general than the items which it comprehends in detail? I answer this by saying that it is better or worse as the case may be. In a treatise like the present it is better; because the present treatise is addressed to those who, to some extent, know beforehand what the terms mean; and who take them without either explanation or definition. But when we teach a child to spell they are worse. To him, who sees the letters for the first time, it is far easier to remember that before a, o, or u, e is pronounced as k, and before i andeass, than to understand how a differs from e, or o from i. Generally speaking, rules save trouble; but this implies that they are known beforehand, and are specially applied as the case presents itself. It also implies that they cover more details than could be remembered with equal ease without the rule. But what is a rule to a child? What, indeed, is the value to an educated adult when it covers only five cases? But what if neither the rule nor the details which it comprises are wanted? What if the supposed necessity for them be wholly artificial, unnecessary, and gratuitous? What if the exposition of either one or the other, be the mere result of something which only wanted to be left alone? What if the evil be created, or kept-up, for mere sake of the abatement; or the disease for the mere trial of the remedy? Such a thing would be strange. Yet it is no more than what we find in the case before us.

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