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SEVENTH VOWEL POSITION.

The next more open vowels than a(n), the 6th lingual, and u(p) Scotch, the 6th labial, are two sounds exactly intermediate to these vowels, and the most open sound ah. The former is heard is such words as ask, past, bath, &c.; and the latter is the regular sound heard in the English utterance of such words as the examples of the preceding sound, up, urge, &c. Let a Scotch and an English mouth pronounce any words of this kind, and the difference will be readily recognised by any ear.

The corresponding labio-lingual position gives a shade of sound which occurs as one of the many modes of pronouncing the vowel in sir, her, fir, girl, earth, &c. These words, in district and individual peculiarities, exhibit every possible variety of labio-lingual sound, from the close seur of the rustic Yorkshireman, to the open sah of the untaught cockney.

EIGHTH VOWEL POSITION.

In the open vowel ah,-called the Italian a,—both classes of Vowels unite. The lips are fully spread, the tongue lies flat, and the whole mouth is in even neutrality between the two modes of vowel formation.

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The subjoined diagram may help to subject more intelligible to the reader. ested in this department of knowledge test our classification by their own experiments, and we believe that its correctness will not be disputed. If this be so, what an assistance to the student in acquiring, and to the teacher in imparting foreign pronunciations must it prove. Even those common French sounds, u and eu, are so awkwardly attempted by our countrymen, in the absence of a knowledge of their formation, that they are seldom perfectly acquired, even in a four or five years' course of instruction in French. Yet, with a knowledge of the mechanism of such sounds, who could be four hours in mastering them?

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This table contains, we believe, all the vowels that occur in modern European languages, besides several dialectic varieties. But the plasticity of the organs which modify voice is so great, that there may be many other shades of sound heard in other languages. The number of possible vowels can, we conceive, be as little estimated as the number of possible shades of colour.

Any new vowel may be added to this scheme, so as to render it complete for any, or for every language; and thus, a simple system of notation might be constructed, by which all the vowel sounds of any people might be represented intelligibly to readers of whatever country or tongue. A table of all recognised vowels and articulations, on some such natural principle of arrangement as this, would be one step towards the realization of that indefinite philological speculation,-a universal language.

To find the place of any vowel not included in our scheme, put the mouth in the position for the closest vowels, (e, oo, and the intermediate sound respectively,) and, from each of these points, very slowly enlarge the oral aperture to the most open position, ah;-of course continuing the voice the whole time. In one or

other of the three gradations of sound so produced, the ear should be able to recognise the vowel sought for, and so ascertain its exact formation. By this mode of vowel progression, too, the accuracy of the three sequences in our scheme may be satisfactorily tested.

We have given the formation of twenty-two vowels :-of these thirteen are genuine English sounds. The mechanism and application of the latter we shall examine minutely; and, under each vowel, we shall arrange a set of exercises, the practice of which may be both interesting and useful.-(Dictionary of English sounds, section first.)

The characteristics, long, short, open, shut, slender, broad, &c. have been applied to the vowels so unsystematically as to confuse very much the notions generally entertained with respect to vowel qualities. Long and short should be applied only to vowels which are essentially the same in formation, and which differ in nothing but duration. But we find these terms used with reference to sounds which are so different in their structure that no change of duration can assimilate them. Thus, e in them is called the short sound of the "long slender" a in tame; a in man is reckoned the short sound of the a in father; i in him is called the short sound of the diphthong i in find; and o in not, and u in but, are called respectively the short sounds of o and u,* the long sounds being heard in such words as owe and you. Of the sound of i, as in him, Mr Walker has said, "This sound is the sound of e, the last letter of the diphthong that forms the long i; and it is not a little surprising that Dr Johnson should say that the short i was a sound wholly different from the long one.

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The lexicographer had, however, in this case, discriminated better than the orthoepist; for the "short i" is a distinctly different formation from either element of the "long one." Mr Walker considers that the words bid, lid, rid, and bead, lead, read, differ only in the quantity of the vowel,-for i, he says, is but the short sound of e; and this theory, taken up without examination by his followers, is still to be found published and republished, in violation of what the dishonoured ear would, if consulted, at once

* In the extraordinary classification of vowels by Mr Pitman, the Author of the System of "Phonography," u in nut is asserted to be the short sound of o in Mr P. declares these sounds to be identical in quality, and different only in quantity or duration!

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show to be the truth. Consistently with this theory, Mr Walker calls the Scotch pronunciation, vee-sion, decee-sion, &c. for vision, decision, &c., simply a lengthening of the English sound. Now, the tendency of all vowels is to open in prolongation; but "short i" is more open than e, and would not therefore naturally be lengthened into e. On the contrary, if any person, guided by his ears, and not by preconceived classifications, strive to lengthen the generally short vowel i, as in vision, him, ill, &c. he will find that the tendency of the prolonged sound will be towards a(le) rather than ee(1). This may be well tested by singing the words to long notes.

Long and short are qualities that cannot be predicated as essential characteristics of any simple vowel; for every vowel may be indefinitely prolonged by those who have sufficient power over their vocal organs to retain them steadily in the vowel position. A person accustomed to the vowel in nun, short, as we generally have it in English, may essay in vain to prolong it with purity; but a Welshman, who is accustomed to the sound as a long vowel, and as the alphabetic name of the letter y, will give it any degree of duration with ease.

The terms long and short are, in this work, used only with reference to the same radical sound.

It is to be observed, that the long forms of vowels have a more free and open aperture than the short ones. The modification of the mouth is the same, but on a larger scale. Thus the vowel in could and cooed, in pull and pool, in very and vary, in not and nought, are long and short degrees of the same vowels; and the aperture of the prolonged sounds is more open than that of the short, while it is of the same shape, and gives essentially the same character to the voice.

Open and shut are terms, too, very faultily applied to vowels, as no vowels are ever shut; and all vowels must be open, if these words have any reference to the oral aperture. Vowels are said to be shut, by Mr Walker, when they do not terminate syllables, and open, when they do; but the division of words into syllables is too arbitrary for any such distinction. Long vowels are frequently "shut," and short ones open;" so there can be no utility in a classification so vague. Besides, the junction of an articulation does not affect the formation of the vowel whether alone or in articulate combinations, the vowels are finished where they are produced-viz. in the glottis. Articulations subjoined affect the length of vowels; but the term "shut,'

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or any other, to signify this, would be useless, as all articulations do not affect the vowels alike.

Broad and slender, also, are terms of no utility. They are applied to vowels utterly unlike in every characteristic of sound. A in fate, is called the slender sound, and a in fall, the broad sound of the same letter. A classification founded, like this, on letters, must lead to confusion, while letters are so indiscriminately used in our orthography. We have the same letters representing half a dozen different sounds, and the same sounds represented in more than a dozen different ways.

Discarding all these names, then, we shall adopt a simple numerical notation and nomenclature for our vowels. In this way we hope to be the better able to fix the student's attention on sounds, irrespective of letters, and to direct with certainty to the practice and application of any vowel sound in connexion with whatever vowel letter or combination of letters.

The following is a Table of the English vowels numbered from 1 to 13. Those which, when accented, are always long, are marked ( ̄); those which are always short, (~); and those which are sometimes long and sometimes short, ( ̄ `).

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There are, besides, three combinations of simple sounds contained in the above Table, forming the

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This classification of English vowels may be thought, at first sight, too difficult for general adoption, but it is, in reality, greatly more simple than the ordinary modes of arrangement. True, we require a separate notation for thirteen sounds in English,—

*The precise formation of this vowel is given at page 26. All the other sounds fall exactly into their proper places in this arrangement.

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