A CRITICAL
PRONOUNCING DICTIONARY*
The figures after the words refer to the numbers in the Principles of Pronunciation pre-fixed to this Dictionary, where the different sounds of the letters are explained at large.Thus, 73 refers to the first sound of the letter A; 93 to the first sound of the letter E ;and so of the rest.
The figures over the letters refer to the vowels in the words at the top of the page; andthe index £j* before these words, refers to the table of simple and diphthongal sounds,where the different sounds of the vowels are exhibited at one view. Thus, iif 559 refersto the table in the opposite page.
ttsso. Fite 73, far 77, fall 83, fit81—me 93, met95—pine 103, pin 107—nA 1G2, liiSvelGt,nor 107, not 103—tiibe 171, tub 172, bull 173—oil 299—pound 313— th in 460, this 409.
A THE first letter of the alphabet,73. A,
5 an article set before nouns of the singular niun*ber; a man, a tree. Before a word beginning witha vowel it is written an, as, an ox. A is sometimesa noun, as, great A. A is placed before a parti*ciple, or participial noun ; gone a hunting, come abegging. A lias a signification denoting proportion ;the landlord hath a hundred a year.
The change of the letter a into an before avowel or mute h for the sake of sound seems to de-serve more attention than has generally been given toit by any of onr grammarians, and will therefore beconsidered under the article An; which see.
Of the alphabetical Pronunciation of theLetter A.
So many profound atwl ingenious observations havebeen made upon this first step to literature,that volumesmight be filled with the erudition that has been lavish*ed on this letter alone. The priority of place itclaims, in all 'alphabets, has made it so much the ob»ject of attention, that philologists suppose the lonuda-tion of learning but weakly laid, till the natural andcivil history of the first letter be fully settled.
But, however deep have been their researches intothe origin of this letter, we find no author in our lan-guage has hitherto attempted to settle the disputes thathave arisen between the natives of England, Ireland ,and Scotland , about the true sound of it, when calledby its name, instead, therefore, of tracing this cha-racter through the circles of Gomer, the Egyptianilieroglyphvcs, the mysterious Abraxas, ortho lushOgum , I shall endeavour to obviate a difficulty thatfrequently avisos when it is prouounced in the Horn*book: or, in other words, to inquire what is the truename of the first letter of the English alphabet—whe-tberwe are to say, Aye, It, jh t ii, V; or Au\
And firrt, it will be necessary to consider the na-ture of a vowel ; which grammarians are generallyagreed in defining to be “ a simple articulate sound,formed by the impulse of Hie voice by tjie openingonly of the mouth in a particular rammer.” Now, as•very vowel by itself is sounded long, as nothing fmt
its junction with a consonant can make it otherwise,it is natural, when pronouncing this vowel alone, togive it the long open sound; but as (his long opensound is threefold, as heard in jar.e,father, and wa-ter, a question arises, which of these long soundsshall we adopt as a common name to the wholespecies of this letter 1 The LnglLh make choice ofthe a in face, the Irish of that in Jatlur , and theScotch of that in water. Each party prodoe>* wordswhere the letter a is sounded in the maimer theycontend for; but when we demand why one should, have the preference, the controversy is commonly uiI an end ; any farther reasons are either too remote ortoo insignificant to be produced : am) indeed, if a di-versity of names to vowels did not con ton nd Ua in ourspelling, *»r declaring to each other the componentletters of a word, it would be entirely mt-dless to en-ter into so trifling a question as the mere name of aletter; but when we find ourselves unable to conveysigns to each other on account of this diversify ofnames, and that words themselves are endangered byan improper utterance of their component parts, itseems highlyincmnbentun us to attempt an uniformityin this point, which, insignificant as it may seem, isundoubtedly the foundation of a just and regularpronunciation.
The first rule for naming a letter, when pronouncedalone, seems to be this: Whatever sound we give to-a Utter when terminating a syllable, the same soundought to be given to it when pronounced alone ; be-cause, in both eases, they have their juimaiy, simplefound, uninfluenced by a succeeding vowel or const*,nant; and, therefore, when we pronounce a letteralone, it ought to have such a sound as does not sup-pose the existence of any other letter. But where-ever a terminates a syllable with the accent upon it,(the only stale in which it can be said to he pure,) ithas always the English sound of that 1* tier. The onlyexceptions to this rule a re, the woi d» fa-tker, ma-xter,and ua ter; and that these are merely exceptions appears from the uniformity with which the a js pro-nounced otherwise in parent , papal, taper , fatal ,Arc. The other vowels have their name* exactly simi-lar to the sound they have in a similar situation, asthe e like that in w ie-grim t the * like the i in tbtle;‘he o as the o in ivrble, and the it like the u in tu-tttr*
B