*1 HR Fust Principles or Elements of Pronun-ciation are Letters:
Roman.
Italic.
Name.
A a
A a
a
B b
B b
bee
C c
C c
see
D d
D d
dee
E e
E e
e
F f
*' f
&
G g
G g
jee
H h
H h
aitch
I i
J i
i, or eye
J .1
J j
j consonant, or jay
K k
K k
kay
L 1
L l
el
M m
M m
em
N n
JV n
en
O o
O o
0
P p
P p
pee
Q Q
Q q i
cue
R r
71 r
ar
S s
S s
ess
T t
T t
tee
V u
U u
it, or yon
V v
V , v
v consonant, or vee
W tv
W u
double u
X x
X X
eks
Y y
y y
wy
Z z
z %
zed, or izzard .
2. To these may he added certain combinationsof letters sometimes used in printing; as, IT, fi, fl,Ri, fll, and Sc, or and per se and, or rather et perstand; ff,fi,fi,f)i, fit, and £.
3. Our letters, says Dr Johnson, are commonlyreckoned twenty-four, because anciently i and j,as well as u and v, were expressed by the samecharacter; but as these letters, which had alwaysdifferent powers, have now different forms, ouralphabet may be properly said to consist of twen-ty-six letters.
4. In considering the sounds of these first prin-ciples of language, we find that some are so simpleand unmixed, that there is nothing required butthe opening of the mouth to make them under-stood, and to form different sounds. Whencethey have the names of vowels , or voices or vocalsounds. On the contrary, we find that there areothers, whose pronunciation depends on the par-ticular application and use of every part of themouth, as the teeth, the lips, the tongue, the pa-late, &c. which yet cannot make any one perfectsound but by their union with those vocal sounds ;and these are called consonants, or letters sound-ing with other letters.
Definition of Vowels and Consonants.
5. Vowels are generally reckoned to be five innumber; namely, a, e, i» o,u ; y and to are calledvowels when they end a syllabic or word, andconsonants when they begin one.
6. The definition of a vowel, as little liable toexception as any, seems to be the following: avowel is a simple sound formed by a continuedeffusion of the breath, and a certain conformationof the mouth, without any alteration in the posi-tion, or any motion of the organ* of speech, fromthe moment the vocal sound commences till itends.
1A
7. A consonant may be defined to be an inter-ruption of the effusion of vocal sound, arisingfrom the application of the organs of speech toeach other.
8. Agreeably to th ; s definition, vowels may bedivided into two kinds, the simple and compound.The simple a, e , o, are those which are formed byone conformation of the organs only ; that is, theorgans remain exactly in the same position at theend as at the beginning of the letter; whereas, inthe compound vowels i and u, the organs altertheir position before the letter is completelysounded : nay, these letters, when commencing asyllable, do not only require a different positionof the organs in ordei to form them perfectly,but demand such an application of the tongue tothe roof of the mouth as Is inconsistent with thenature of a pure vowel; for the first of these let-ters, *, when sounded alone, or ending a syllablewith the accent upon it, is a real diphthong, com-posed of the sounds of a in father, and of e in the,exactly correspondent to the sound of the nouneye ; and when this letter commences a syllable,as in min-ion, pin-ion, &c. the sound of e withwhich it terminates is squeezed into a consonantsound, like the double e heard in queen, differentfrom the simple sound of that letter in quean, andthis squeezed sound in the commencing i makesit exactly similar to y in the same situation ;which, by all grammarians, is acknowledged tobe a consonant *. The latter of these compoundvowels, 11 , when initial, and not shortened by aconsonant, commences with this squeezed soundof e, equivalent to the y, and ends with a soundgiven to oo in woo and coo, which makes its namein the alphabet exactly similar to the pronounyoui. If, therefore, the common definition of a
* How so accurate a grammarian as Dr. Lowthcould pronounce so definitively on the nature ofy, and insist on its being always a vowel, can onlybe accounted for by considering the small atten-tion which is generally paid to this part of gram-mar. His words are these :
“ The same sound which we express by theinitial y, our Saxon ancestors in many instancesexpressed by the vowel e; as eoiver, your; andby the vowel i; as iw, yew; tong, young. In theword yew the kiitial y has precisely the samesound with i in the words view, lieu, adieu: the iis acknowledged to be a vowel in these latter;how then can the y, which has the very samesound, possibly be a consonant in the formert Itsinitial sound is generally like that of i in shire,or ee nearly ; it is formed by the opening of themouth without any motion or contact of the parts :in a won!, it has every property of a vowel, andnot one of a consonant.”—Introd. to Eng. Gram,page 3.
Thus far the learned bishop, who has too fixeda fume to suffer any diminution by a mistake inso trifling a part of literature as this: but it maybe asked, if y has every property of a vowel andnot one of a consonant, why, when it begins aword, does it not admit of the euphonic article anbefore it?
t An ignorance of the real composition of u,and a want of know'ing that it partook of the na-ture of a consonant, has occasioned a great diver-sity and uncertainty in prefixing the indefinitearticle an before it. Our ancestors, judging of itsnature fron It* name, never suspected that it was