that befides gratifying curiofity, they will turn out to be of the most important use.

The first thing I shall offer to your confideration is the first article in the fyllabus, entitled, A scheme of the vowels.

Here we fee each vowel ftands for three. different founds, and I have claffed them in this manner, because I fhall have occafion to mention them hereafter by the titles of First,

First, Second, and Third founds, according to the order in which they lie, and as they are marked by thofe figures.

At first view of this fcheme one would be apt to imagine that we have no less than 17 founds of vowels in our tongue; but on a nearer examination we fhall find that there are feveral duplicates of the fame founds differently marked. Thus the fecond founds of a and e, as in hate there, are the fame. The third founds in e and i, here

I

field, are also the fame. The found of o in

3

not, is only the fhort found of a in hall, which will be immediately perceived, if we place the fame confonant after the vowel in its long and fhort found; as hall holl, naught not. The fecond found of i in the word bite, and the third found of u in cube, are not fimple sounds but diphthongs, as I shall hereafter prove. And with regard to the two founds of y, the first perceived in

the

the last syllable of lovely, is only the short

3

2

found of e, and the 2d in try is the fame as i. So that there remain only 9 fimple founds

or vowels, which I fhall presently enume

rate.

vowels.

There are in our tongue 28 fimple founds, whereof 19 are confonants, and 9 The confonants are, b d f

rftvz*th th fh zh ng.

3 1 2

2 3 I 1 I

1

g

klmnp

The vowels

+ aaa eo o ei u. The last three

are, +

are never founded alone nor finish a syllable, fo that it is neceffary to perceive their founds diftinctly that a confonant should

follow them in the fame fyllable, as in the words bet, fit, cub.

th has two founds, one in the word thin, the other in then. To diftinguish them the former found will be always marked by a cerilla.

3

2.

3

2

+ As in the words hall hat hate here note prove bet

fit cub.

Of

Of the confonants the last five are marked

by two letters each, and therefore have been confidered by our grammarians as com→ pound founds, though in reality they are as fimple as any of the reft. But the truth is, the Roman language was without these founds, confequently they had no letters in their alphabet to mark them. The found of eth or the Greek indeed they had adopted together with fome words from that language, fuch as theatrum, theologia, &c.; but not having the power to introduce the Greek letter into their alphabet, they fell upon the expedient of marking it by a junction of their h or mark of afpiration with a t, and this expedient we have adopted from them in marking three of those sounds of th as in the word thin; th, as in then, and fh, as in fhall. But we have as yet given no peculiar mark to the 4th found, ezh, being fometimes reprefented

fented by a fingle z, as in azure; fometimes by an f, as in ofier. The laft found ng, which is perhaps peculiar to the English language, is marked by the junction of n with g. Of the eighteen consonants to be found in the Roman alphabet, two are fuperfluous, c having only the power of a k, or an ; of a k, as in card, an f, as in cease; and q of a k when it precedes a diphthong beginning with a u, as in quality. And two are marks of compound not fimple founds; j of zh preceded by a d, as ezh, edzh,—james, dzhames. And x standing for ks, or gz-ks, as in excellence; gz as in example, egzample. So that there remain in reality but fourteen characters to mark nineteen fimple founds of confonants to be found in our tongue. This brought on the neceffity before-mentioned of marking those fupernumerary simple sounds by two letters. But thefe combinations are merely arbitrary, and are by no means an

affift