Читать книгу The Grammar of English Grammars - Goold Brown - Страница 59

OBS. 1.—The foregoing division of the letters is of very great antiquity, and, in respect to its principal features sanctioned by almost universal authority; yet if we examine it minutely, either with reference to the various opinions of the learned, or with regard to the essential differences among the things of which it speaks, it will not perhaps be found in all respects indisputably certain. It will however be of use, as a basis for some subsequent rules, and as a means of calling the attention of the learner to the manner in which he utters the sounds of the letters. A knowledge of about three dozen different elementary sounds is implied in the faculty of speech. The power of producing these sounds with distinctness, and of adapting them to the purposes for which language is used, constitutes perfection of utterance. Had we a perfect alphabet, consisting of one symbol, and only one, for each elementary sound; and a perfect method of spelling, freed from silent letters, and precisely adjusted to the most correct pronunciation of words; the process of learning to read would doubtless be greatly facilitated. And yet any attempt toward such a reformation, any change short of the introduction of some entirely new mode of writing, would be both unwise and impracticable. It would involve our laws and literature in utter confusion, because pronunciation is the least permanent part of language; and if the orthography of words were conformed entirely to this standard, their origin and meaning would, in many instances, be soon lost. We must therefore content ourselves to learn languages as they are, and to make the best use we can of our present imperfect system of alphabetic characters; and we may be the better satisfied to do this, because the deficiencies and redundancies of this alphabet are not yet so well ascertained, as to make it certain what a perfect one would be.

OBS. 2.—In order to have a right understanding of the letters, it is necessary to enumerate, as accurately as we can, the elementary sounds of the language; and to attend carefully to the manner in which these sounds are enunciated, as well as to the characters by which they are represented. The most unconcerned observer cannot but perceive that there are certain differences in the sounds, as well as in the shapes, of the letters; and yet under what heads they ought severally to be classed, or how many of them will fall under some particular name, it may occasionally puzzle a philosopher to tell. The student must consider what is proposed or asked, use his own senses, and judge for himself. With our lower-case alphabet before him, he can tell by his own eye, which are the long letters, and which the short ones; so let him learn by his own ear, which are the vowels, and which, the consonants. The processes are alike simple; and, if he be neither blind nor deaf, he can do both about equally well. Thus he may know for a certainty, that a is a short letter, and b a long one; the former a vowel, the latter a consonant: and so of others. Yet as he may doubt whether t is a long letter or a short one, so he may be puzzled to say whether w and y, as heard in we and ye, are vowels or consonants: but neither of these difficulties should impair his confidence in any of his other decisions. If he attain by observation and practice a clear and perfect pronunciation of the letters, he will be able to class them for himself with as much accuracy as he will find in books.

OBS. 3.—Grammarians have generally agreed that every letter is either a vowel or a consonant; and also that there are among the latter some semivowels, some mutes, some aspirates, some liquids, some sharps, some flats, some labials, some dentals, some nasals, some palatals, and perhaps yet other species; but in enumerating the letters which belong to these several classes, they disagree so much as to make it no easy matter to ascertain what particular classification is best supported by their authority. I have adopted what I conceive to be the best authorized, and at the same time the most intelligible. He that dislikes the scheme, may do better, if he can. But let him with modesty determine what sort of discoveries may render our ancient authorities questionable. Aristotle, three hundred and thirty years before Christ, divided the Greek letters into vowels, semivowels, and mutes, and declared that no syllable could be formed without a vowel. In the opinion of some neoterics, it has been reserved to our age, to detect the fallacy of this. But I would fain believe that the Stagirite knew as well what he was saying, as did Dr. James Rush, when, in 1827, he declared the doctrine of vowels and consonants to be "a misrepresentation." The latter philosopher resolves the letters into "tonics, subtonics, and atonics;" and avers that "consonants alone may form syllables." Indeed, I cannot but think the ancient doctrine better. For, to say that "consonants alone may form syllables," is as much as to say that consonants are not consonants, but vowels! To be consistent, the attempters of this reformation should never speak of vowels or consonants, semivowels or mutes; because they judge the terms inappropriate, and the classification absurd. They should therefore adhere strictly to their "tonics, subtonics, and atonics;" which classes, though apparently the same as vowels, semivowels, and mutes, are better adapted to their new and peculiar division of these elements. Thus, by reforming both language and philosophy at once, they may make what they will of either!

OBS. 4.—Some teach that w and y are always vowels: conceiving the former to be equivalent to oo, and the latter to i or e. Dr. Lowth says, "Y is always a vowel," and "W is either a vowel or a diphthong." Dr. Webster supposes w to be always "a vowel, a simple sound;" but admits that, "At the beginning of words, y is called an articulation or consonant, and with some propriety perhaps, as it brings the root of the tongue in close contact with the lower part of the palate, and nearly in the position to which the close g brings it."—American Dict., Octavo. But I follow Wallis, Brightland, Johnson, Walker, Murray, Worcester, and others, in considering both of them sometimes vowels and sometimes consonants. They are consonants at the beginning of words in English, because their sounds take the article a, and not an, before them; as, a wall, a yard, and not, an wall, an yard. But oo or the sound of e, requires an, and not a; as, an eel, an oozy bog.[94] At the end of a syllable we know they are vowels; but at the beginning, they are so squeezed in their pronunciation, as to follow a vowel without any hiatus, or difficulty of utterance; as, "O worthy youth! so young, so wise!"

OBS. 5.—Murray's rule, "W and y are consonants when they begin a word or syllable, but in every other situation they are vowels," which is found in Comly's book, Kirkham's, Merchant's, Ingersoll's, Fisk's. Hart's, Hiley's, Alger's, Bullions's, Pond's, S. Putnam's, Weld's, and in sundry other grammars, is favourable to my doctrine, but too badly conceived to be quoted here as authority. It undesignedly makes w a consonant in wine, and a vowel in twine; and y a consonant when it forms a syllable, as in dewy: for a letter that forms a syllable, "begins" it. But Kirkham has lately learned his letters anew; and, supposing he had Dr. Rush on his side, has philosophically taken their names for their sounds. He now calls y a "diphthong." But he is wrong here by his own showing: he should rather have called it a triphthong. He says, "By pronouncing in a very deliberate and perfectly natural manner, the letter y, (which is a diphthong,) the unpractised student will perceive, that the sound produced, is compound; being formed, at its opening, of the obscure sound of oo as heard in oo-ze, which sound rapidly slides into that of i, and then advances to that of ee as heard in e-ve, and on which it gradually passes off into silence."—Kirkham's Elocution, p. 75. Thus the "unpractised student" is taught that b-y spells bwy; or, if pronounced "very deliberately, boo-i-ee!" Nay, this grammatist makes b, not a labial mute, as Walker, Webster, Cobb, and others, have called it, but a nasal subtonic, or semivowel. He delights in protracting its "guttural murmur;" perhaps, in assuming its name for its sound; and, having proved, that "consonants are capable of forming syllables," finds no difficulty in mouthing this little monosyllable by into b-oo-i-ee! In this way, it is the easiest thing in the world, for such a man to outface Aristotle, or any other divider of the letters; for he makes the sounds by which he judges. "Boy," says the teacher of Kirkham's Elocution, "describe the protracted sound of y."—Kirkham's Elocution, p. 110. The pupil may answer, "That letter, sir, has no longer or more complex sound, than what is heard in the word eye, or in the vowel i; but the book which I study, describes it otherwise. I know not whether I can make you understand it, but I will tr-oo-i-ee." If the word try, which the author uses as an example, does not exhibit his "protracted sound of y," there is no word that does: the sound is a mere fiction, originating in strange ignorance.

OBS. 6.—In the large print above, I have explained the principal classes of the letters, but not all that are spoken of in books. It is proper to inform the learner that the sharp consonants are t, and all others after which our contracted preterits and participles require that d should be sounded like t; as in the words faced, reached, stuffed, laughed, triumphed, croaked, cracked, houghed, reaped, nipped, piqued, missed, wished, earthed, betrothed, fixed. The flat or smooth consonants are d, and all others with which the proper sound of d may be united; as in the words, daubed, judged, hugged, thronged, sealed, filled, aimed, crammed, pained, planned, feared, marred, soothed, loved, dozed, buzzed. The labials are those consonants which are articulated chiefly by the lips; among which, Dr. Webster reckons b, f, m, p, and v. But Dr. Rush says, b and m are nasals, the latter, "purely nasal." [95] The dentals are those consonants which are referred to the teeth; the nasals are those which are affected by the nose; and the palatals are those which compress the palate, as k and hard g. But these last-named classes are not of much importance; nor have I thought it worth while to notice minutely the opinions of writers respecting the others, as whether h is a semivowel, or a mute, or neither.

OBS. 7.—The Cherokee alphabet, which was invented in 1821, by See-quo-yah, or George Guess, an ingenious but wholly illiterate Indian, contains eighty-five letters, or characters. But the sounds of the language are much fewer than ours; for the characters represent, not simple tones and articulations, but syllabic sounds, and this number is said to be sufficient to denote them all. But the different syllabic sounds in our language amount to some thousands. I suppose, from the account, that See-quo-yah writes his name, in his own language, with three letters; and that characters so used, would not require, and probably would not admit, such a division as that of vowels and consonants. One of the Cherokees, in a letter to the American Lyceum, states, that a knowledge of this mode of writing is so easily acquired, that one who understands and speaks the language, "can learn to read in a day; and, indeed," continues the writer, "I have known some to acquire the art in 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.