18 ORGANIC FORMATION OF THE VOWELS AND CONSONANTS.
itself to the root, as to make way for the sound,almost rests upon the under jaw.
34. The Italian a, heard in father, closes the
mouth a little more than the German a ; and byraising the lower jaw, widening the tongue, andadvancing it a little nearer to the lips, renders itssound less hollow and deep. .
35. The slender a, or that heard in lane, is *formed in the mouth still higher than the last;and in pronouncing it the lips, as if to give it aslender sound, dilate their aperture horizontally ;while the tongue, to assist this narrow emissionof breath, widens itself to the cheeks, raises itselfnearer the palate, and by these means a less hol-low sound than either of the former is produced.
36. The e in e-qual is formed by diluting the
tongue a little more, and advancing it nearer tothe palate and the lips, which produces the slen-derest vowel in the language; for the tongue is,in the formation of this letter, as close to the pa-late as possible, without touching it; as the mo-ment the tongue touches the palate, the squeezedsound of ee in thee and meet is formed, which, byits description^must partake of the sound of thecopscn&Av >' . .
37. The i in iM is formed by uniting the soundof the Italian a in father and the e in c-qual, andpronouncing them as closely together as possible.See Directions to Foreigners at the beginning ofthis book, page 13.
S8. The o in o-pen is formed by nearly the sameposition of the organs as the a in tva-ter ; but thetongue is advanced a little more into the middleof the mouth, the lips are protruded, and form around aperture like the ionn of the letter, andthe voice is not so deep in the mouth as when ais formed, but advances to the middle or hollowof the mouth.
30. The u in u-nit is formed by uniting thesqueezed sound ee to a simple vowel sound, heardin U'oo and coo; the oo in these words is formedby protruding the lips a little more than in o,forming e smaller aperture with them, and, in-stead of swelling the voice in the middle of themouth, bringing it as forward as possible to thelips.
40. Y final in try is formed like i: and tv finalin notv like the oo, which has just been described.
In thi 3 view of the organic formation of thevowels we find that a, e, and o, are the only sim-ple or pure vowels: that i is a diphthong, andthat u is a sem.-consonant. If we were inclinedto contrive a scale for measuring the breadth ornarrowness, or, as others term it, the openness orcloseness of the vowels, we might begin with eopen, as Mr. Elphinston calls it, and which heannounces to be the closest of all the vocalpowers. In the pronunciation of this letter wefind the aperture of the mouth extended on eachside; the lips almost closed, and the sound issuinghorizontally. The slender a in waste opens themouth a little wider. The a in father opens themouth still more without contracting the corners.The German a, heard in wall, not only opens themouth wider than the former a, but contracts thecorners of the mouth so as to make the apertureapproach nearer to a circle, while the o opens themouth still more, and contracts the corners so asto make i’: the 0.9 rotundutn, a picture of the letterit sounds. If therefore the other vowels were,like 0 , to take their forms from the aperture ofthe mouth in pronouncing them, the German aought necessarily to have a figure as nearly ap-proaching the o in form as it does in sound ; thatis, it ought to have that elliptical form which ap-proaches nearest to the circle; as the a of theItalians , and that of the English in father, oughtto form ovals, in exact proportion to the breadthof their sounds ; the English a m waste ought tohave a narrower oval ; the e in the ought to havethe curve of a parabola, and the squeezed soundof ee in seen a right line ; or, to reduce these linesto solids, the 0 would be a perfect globe, the Ger man a an oblate spheroid lihe the figure of theearth, the Italian a like an egg, the English slen-der a a Dutch skittle, the e a rolling-pin, and thedouble e a cylinder.
Organic Formation of the Consonants.
41. The best method of showing the organicformation of the consonants will be to class theminta such pairs as they naturally fall into, and
then, by describing one, we shall nearly describeits fellow ; by which means the labour will belessened, and the nature of the consonants betterperceived. The consonants that fall into pairs arethe following:
p f t s sh th fc ch — chair,
b v d s zh rtfi g j—jail.
4*2. Holder, who wrote the most elaborately andphilosophically upon this subject, tells us, in hisElements of Speech that when we only whisperwe cannot distinguish the first rank of these let-ters from the second. It is certain the differencebetween them is very nice; the upper lettersseeming to haveonlj’ a smarter, brisker, appulseof the organs than the lower; which may not im-properly lie distinguished by sharp ami fiat. Themost marking distinction between them will befound to l»e a sort of guttural murmur, which pre-cedes the latter letters when we wish to pro-nounce them forcibly, but not the former. Thusif we close the lips, and put the lingers on themto keep them shut, and strive to pronounce the p ,no sound at all will be heard ; but in striving topronounce the £> we shall find a murmuring soundIrom the throat, which selnns lhe.commenrenientol tiie letter; and it we do but stop the breath bythe appulse of the organs, in order to pronouncewith greater force, the same may be observed ofthe rest of the letters.
43. This diilereuce in the formation of theseconsonants may he more distinctly perceived inthe s ami z than in any other of the letters; tiieformer is sounded by the simple issue of the breathbetween the teeth, without any vibration of it inthe throat, and may be called a hissing sound ;while the latter cannot he formed without, gene-rating a sound in the throat, which may be c alleda vocal sound. The upper rank of letters, there-fore, may he called breathing consonants; andthe lower vocal ones.
44. These observations premised, we may pro-ceed to describe tiie organic formation of eachletter.
45. P and B are formed by closing the lips tillthe breath is collected, and then letting it issueby forming the vowel e.
46. /'’and Tare formed by pressing the upperteeth upon the under lip, and sounding the vowele before the former ami niter the Jailer of theseletters.
47. T and D are formed by pressing the tip ofthe tongue to the gums of the upper teeth, andthen separ ating them, by pronouncing tire vowel e.
48. .V and X are formed bv placing the tonguein the same position as in T and l), but not soclose to the gums as to stop the breath : a spneeis left between the tongue and the palate for thebreath to issue, which forms the hissing and buz-zing sound of these letters.
49. S1I heard in mission, and zh in evasion, areformed in the same seat of sound as s and s ; butin the former the tongue is drawn a little in-wards, and at a somewhat greater dis'ance fromthe palate, which occasions a fuller effusion ofbreath from the hollow of the mouth than in thelatter, which are formed nearer to the teeth. .
50. Til in think, and the same letters in that,arc formed by protruding the tongjie between thefore teeth, pressing it against tiie upper teeth,and at the same time endeavouring to sound thes or z; the former letter to sound th in think, andthe latter to sound th in that.
61. K ami G hard are formed by pressing themiddle of the tongue to the roof of the mouthmar the throat, and separating them a littlesmartly to form the first, and more gently to formthe last of these letters.
52. ('ll in chair, and J in jail, arc formed bypressing t to sh, and d to zh.
63. M is formed by closing the lips, as in P and11, and letting the voice issue by tin; nose.
54. N is formed by renting the tongue in thesame position as in T or 1), and breathing throughthe nose, with the mouth open.
55. Ij is formed by nearly the same position ofthe organs as t and d, but more with the tip of tiietongue, which is brought a little forwarder to theteeth, while the breath issues from the mouth.
56. 11 is formed by placing the tongue nearly inthe position of t, but at such a distance from the