the lips, we hear i. The buccal tube represents a bottle with a very narrow neck of no more than six centimètres from palate to lips. Such a bottle would answer to c""". The natural pitch of i seems

7. There is, besides, the most troublesome of all vowels, the neutral vowel, sometimes called Urvocal. Professor Willis defines it as the natural vowel of the reed, Mr. Ellis as the voice in its least modified form. Some people hear it everywhere, others imagine they can distinguish various shades of it. We know it best in short closed syllables, such as but, dust, &c. It is supposed to be long in absurd. Sir John Herschel hears but one and the same vowel in spurt, assert, bird, virtue, dove, oven, double, blood. Sheridan and Smart distinguish between the vowels heard in bird and work, in whirl'd and world. There is no doubt that in English all unaccented syllables have a tendency towards it,1 e. g. against, final, prin

1 Ellis, 29.

cipăl, ideă, captain, village. Town sinks to Paddington, ford to Oxford; and though some of these pronunciations may still be considered as vulgar, they are nevertheless real.

These are the principal vowels, and there are few languages in which they do not occur. But we have only to look to English, French, and German in order to perceive that there are many varieties of vocal sound besides these. There is the French u. the German ü, which lies between i and u;1 as in French, du, German, über, Sünde. Professor Helmholtz has fixed the natural pitch of ❞ as "".

There is the French eu, the German ö, which lies between e and o, as in French peu, German König, or short in Böcke.2 Professor Helmholtz has fixed the natural pitch of ö as c"" sharp.

There is the peculiar short a in closed syllables in English, such as hat, happy, man. It may be heard lengthened in the affected pronunciation of half. There is the peculiar short i, as heard in the English happy, reality, hit, knit.

There is the short e in closed syllables, such as heard in English debt, bed, men, which, if lengthened, comes very near to the German ä in Väter, and the French è in père, not quite the English there..

Lastly, there are the diphthongs, which arise when, instead of pronouncing one vowel immediately after 1 "While the tongue gets ready to pronounce i, the lips assume the position requisite for u." - Du Bois-Reymond, Kadmus, թ. 150.

2 The German ō, if shortened, seems to dwindle down to the neutral vowel, e. g. Öƒen, ovens, but öffnen, to open. See Du Bois-Reymond, Kadmus, p. 173. Nevertheless, it is necessary to distinguish between the German Götter and the English gutter.

• Brücke speaks of this and some other vowels which occur in English in closed syllables as imperfect vowels. — p. 23.

another with two efforts of the voice, we produce a sound during the change from one position to the other that would be required for each vowel. If we change the a into the i position and pronounce a vowel, we hear ai, as in aisle. A singer who has to sing I on a long note will end by singing the Italian i. If we change the a into the u position and pronounce a vowel, we hear au, as in how. Here, too, we find many varieties, such as ăi, âi, ei, and the several less perfect diphthongs, such as oi, ui, &c.

Though this may seem a long and tedious list, it is, in fact, but a very rough sketch, and I must refer to the works of Mr. Ellis and others for many minute details in the chromatic scale of the vowels. Though the tube of the mouth, as modified by the tongue and the lips, is the principal determinant in the production of vowels, yet there are other agencies at work, the velum pendulum, the posterior wall of the pharynx, the greater or less elevation of the larynx, all coming in at times to modify the cavity of the throat. It is said that in pronouncing the high vowels the bones of the skull participate in the vibration,1 and it has been proved by irrefragable evidence that the velum pendulum is of very essential importance in the pronunciation of all vowels. Professor Czermak,2 b introducing a probe through the nose into the cavity of the pharynx, felt distinctly that the position of the velum was changed with each vowel; that it was lowest for a, and rose successively with e, o, u, i, reaching its highest point with i.

1 Brücke, p. 16.

• Sitzungsberichte der K. K. Akademie zu Wien (Mathemat.-Naturwissenschaftliche Classe), xxiv. p. 5.

There is no rea: on why languages should not have been entirely formed of vowels. There are

y, such as Latin eo, Greek êioeis (ós, aal s; the Hawaian itial breathing. Yet inpleasant the effect

words consisting of vowels c I go; ea, she; eoa, eastern; t with high banks), but for its hooiaioai, to testify, but for its these very words show how of such a language would he been. Something else was wanted to supply the namely, the consonants. Cons Sanskrit vyanjana, which mean or manifest," while the vowe sounds, from the same root w in Latin.

bones of language, nants are called in "rendering distinct

are called svara, ch yielded susurrus

of establishing genhe evidence at their hat languages like

As scholars are always fond eral theories, however scanty disposal, we need not wonder the Hawaian, in which the vows predominate to a very considerable extent, should have been represented as prim was readily supposed that the

In that very ground ve languages. It eneral progress of

language was from the slightlrticulated to the

4

fewer the conso-

we have only to Polynesian lan

too the consois lost; that congot to be dropped els. Prof. Busch"Mes recherches cet état de pau

strongly articulated; and that nants, the older the language. compare the Hawaian with tl guages in order to see that th nantal articulation existed and sonants, in fact, are much more than to sprout up between two mann expresses the same opinic: m'ont conduit à la conviction, vreté phonique polynésienne n pas tant l'état naturel d'une langue prise à s of uissance, qu'une détérioration du type vigoureux tal langues malaies occidentales, amenée par un peuui a peu de dis

ar