The Grammar of English Grammars by Goold Brown (free ebook reader .txt) 📕

a single evening. It is only necessary to learn the different sounds of the characters, to be enabled to read at once. In the English language, we must not only first learn the letters, but to spell, before reading; but in Cherokee, all that is required, is, to learn the letters; for they have syllabic sounds, and by connecting different ones together, a word is formed: in which there is no art. All who understand the language can do so, and both read and write, so soon as they can learn to trace with their fingers the forms of the characters. I suppose that more than one half of the Cherokees can read their own language, and are thereby enabled to acquire much valuable information, with which they otherwise would never have been blessed."—W. S. Coodey, 1831.

OBS. 8.—From the foregoing account, it would appear that the Cherokee language is a very peculiar one: its words must either be very few, or the proportion of polysyllables very great. The characters used in China and Japan, stand severally for words; and their number is said to be not less than seventy thousand; so that the study of a whole life is scarcely sufficient to make a man thoroughly master of them. Syllabic writing is represented by Dr. Blair as a great improvement upon the Chinese method, and yet as being far inferior to that which is properly alphabetic, like ours. "The first step, in this new progress," says he, "was the invention of an alphabet of syllables, which probably preceded the invention of an alphabet of letters, among some of the ancient nations; and which is said to be retained to this day, in Ethiopia, and some countries of India. By fixing upon a particular mark, or character, for every syllable in the language, the number of characters, necessary to be used in writing, was reduced within a much smaller compass than the number of words in the language. Still, however, the number of characters was great; and must have continued to render both reading and writing very laborious arts. Till, at last, some happy genius arose, and tracing the sounds made by the human voice, to their most simple elements, reduced them to a very few vowels and consonants; and, by affixing to each of these, the signs which we now call letters, taught men how, by their combinations, to put in writing all the different words, or combinations of sound, which they employed in speech. By being reduced to this simplicity, the art of writing was brought to its highest state of perfection; and, in this state, we now enjoy it in all the countries of Europe."—Blair's Rhetoric, Lect. VII, p. 68.

OBS. 9.—All certain knowledge of the sounds given to the letters by Moses and the prophets having been long ago lost, a strange dispute has arisen, and been carried on for centuries, concerning this question, "Whether the Hebrew letters are, or are not, all consonants:" the vowels being supposed by some to be suppressed and understood; and not written, except by points of comparatively late invention. The discussion of such a question does not properly belong to English grammar; but, on account of its curiosity, as well as of its analogy to some of our present disputes, I mention it. Dr. Charles Wilson says, "After we have sufficiently known the figures and names of the letters, the next step is, to learn to enunciate or to pronounce them, so as to produce articulate sounds. On this subject, which appears at first sight very plain and simple, numberless contentions and varieties of opinion meet us at the threshold. From the earliest period of the invention of written characters to represent human language, however more or less remote that time may be, it seems absolutely certain, that the distinction of letters into vowels and consonants must have obtained. All the speculations of the Greek grammarians assume this as a first principle." Again: "I beg leave only to premise this observation, that I absolutely and unequivocally deny the position, that all the letters of the Hebrew alphabet are consonants; and, after the most careful and minute inquiry, give it as my opinion, that of the twenty-two letters of which the Hebrew alphabet consists, five are vowels and seventeen are consonants. The five vowels by name are, Aleph, He, Vau, Yod, and Ain."—Wilson's Heb. Gram., pp. 6 and 8.

III. POWERS OF THE LETTERS.

The powers of the letters are properly those elementary sounds which their figures are used to represent; but letters formed into words, are capable of communicating thought independently of sound. The simple elementary sounds of any language are few, commonly not more than thirty-six;[96] but they may be variously combined, so as to form words innumerable. Different vowel sounds, or vocal elements, are produced by opening the mouth differently, and placing the tongue in a peculiar manner for each; but the voice may vary in loudness, pitch, or time, and still utter the same vowel power.

The vowel sounds which form the basis of the English language, and which ought therefore to be perfectly familiar to every one who speaks it, are those which are heard at the beginning of the words, ate, at, ah, all, eel, ell, isle, ill, old, on, ooze, use, us, and that of u in bull.

In the formation of syllables, some of these fourteen primary sounds may be joined together, as in ay, oil, out, owl; and all of them may be preceded or followed by certain motions and positions of the lips and tongue, which will severally convert them into other terms in speech. Thus the same essential sounds may be changed into a new series of words by an f; as, fate, fat, far, fall, feel, fell, file, fill, fold, fond, fool, fuse, fuss, full. Again, into as many more with a p; as, pate, pat, par, pall, peel, pell, pile, pill, pole, pond, pool, pule, purl, pull. Each of the vowel sounds may be variously expressed by letters. About half of them are sometimes words: the rest are seldom, if ever, used alone even to form syllables. But the reader may easily learn to utter them all, separately, according to the foregoing series. Let us note them as plainly as possible: eigh, ~a, ah, awe, =eh, ~e, eye, ~i, oh, ~o, oo, yew, ~u, û. Thus the eight long sounds, eigh, ah, awe, eh, eye, oh, ooh, yew, are, or may be, words; but the six less vocal, called the short vowel sounds, as in at, et, it, ot, ut, put, are commonly heard only in connexion with consonants; except the first, which is perhaps the most frequent sound of the vowel A or a—a sound sometimes given to the word a, perhaps most generally; as in the phrase, "twice ~a day."

The simple consonant sounds in English are twenty-two: they are marked by b, d, f, g hard, h, k, l, m, n, ng, p, r, s, sh, t, th sharp, th flat, v, w, y, z, and zh. But zh is written only to show the sound of other letters; as of s in pleasure, or z in azure.

All these sounds are heard distinctly in the following words: buy, die, fie, guy, high, kie, lie, my, nigh, eying, pie, rye, sigh, shy, tie, thigh, thy, vie, we, ye, zebra, seizure. Again: most of them may be repeated in the same word, if not in the same syllable; as in bibber, diddle, fifty, giggle, high-hung, cackle, lily, mimic, ninny, singing, pippin, mirror, hissest, flesh-brush, tittle, thinketh, thither, vivid, witwal, union,[97] dizzies, vision.

With us, the consonants J and X represent, not simple, but complex sounds: hence they are never doubled. J is equivalent to dzh; and X, either to ks or to gz. The former ends no English word, and the latter begins none. To the initial X of foreign words, we always give the simple sound of Z; as in Xerxes, xebec.

The consonants C and Q have no sounds peculiar to themselves. Q has always the power of k. C is hard, like k, before a, o, and u; and soft, like s, before e, i, and y: thus the syllables, ca, ce, ci, co, cu, cy, are pronounced, ka, se, si, ko, ku, sy. S before c preserves the former sound, but coalesces with the latter; hence the syllables, sca, sce, sci, sco, scu, scy, are sounded, ska, se, si, sko, sku, sy. Ce and ci have sometimes the sound of sh; as in ocean, social. Ch commonly represents the compound sound of tsh; as in church.

G, as well as C, has different sounds before different vowels. G is always hard, or guttural, before a, o, and u; and generally soft, like j, before e, i, or y: thus the syllables, ga, ge, gi, go, gu, gy, are pronounced ga, je, ji, go, gu, jy.

The possible combinations and mutations of the twenty-six letters of our alphabet, are many millions of millions. But those clusters which are unpronounceable, are useless. Of such as may be easily uttered, there are more than enough for all the purposes of useful writing, or the recording of speech.

Thus it is, that from principles so few and simple as about six or seven and thirty plain elementary sounds, represented by characters still fewer, we derive such a variety of oral and written signs, as may suffice to explain or record all the sentiments and transactions of all men in all ages.

OBSERVATIONS.

OBS. 1.—A knowledge of sounds can be acquired, in the first instance, only by the ear. No description of the manner of their production, or of the differences which distinguish them, can be at all intelligible to him who has not already, by the sense of hearing, acquired a knowledge of both. What I here say of the sounds of the letters, must of course be addressed to those persons only who are able both to speak and to read English. Why then attempt instruction by a method which both ignorance and knowledge on the part of the pupil, must alike render useless? I have supposed some readers to have such an acquaintance with the powers of the letters, as is but loose and imperfect; sufficient for the accurate pronunciation of some words or syllables, but leaving them liable to mistakes in others; extending perhaps to all the sounds of the language, but not to a ready analysis or enumeration of them. Such persons may profit by a written description of the powers of the letters, though no such description can equal the clear impression of the living voice. Teachers, too, whose business it is to aid the articulation of the young, and, by a patient inculcation of elementary principles, to lay the foundation of an accurate pronunciation, may derive some assistance from any notation of these principles, which will help their memory, or that of the learner. The connexion between letters and sounds is altogether arbitrary; but a few positions, being assumed and made known, in respect to some characters, become easy standards for further instruction in respect to others of similar sound.

OBS. 2.—The importance of being instructed at an early age, to pronounce with distinctness and facility all the elementary sounds of one's native language, has been so frequently urged, and is so obvious in itself, that none but those who have been themselves neglected, will be likely to disregard the claims of their children in this respect.[98] But surely an accurate knowledge of the ordinary powers of the letters would be vastly more common, were there not much hereditary negligence respecting the manner in which these important rudiments are learned. The utterance of the illiterate may exhibit wit and native talent, but it is always more or less barbarous, because it is not aided by a knowledge of orthography. For pronunciation and orthography, however they may seem, in our language especially, to be often at variance, are certainly correlative: a true knowledge of either tends to the preservation of both. Each of the letters represents some one or more of the elementary sounds, exclusive of the rest; and each of the elementary sounds, though several of them are occasionally transferred, has some one or two letters to which it most properly or most frequently belongs. But borrowed, as our language has been, from a great variety of sources, to which it is desirable ever to retain the means of tracing it, there is certainly much apparent lack of correspondence between its oral and its written form. Still the discrepancies are few, when compared with the instances of exact conformity; and, if they are, as I suppose they are, unavoidable, it is as useless to complain of the trouble they occasion, as it is to think of forcing a reconciliation. The wranglers in this controversy, can never agree among themselves, whether orthography shall