sumes the character of a trilled r, the deep guttural r of the Low Saxons. The Arabic and έ I must

continue to consider as near equivalents of the ch in loch and 'h in German tage, though the pronunciation of the έ approaches sometimes to a trill, like the r grasseyé.

Trills.

We have to add to this class of letters two which are commonly called trills, the r and the l. They are both intonable or sonant, that is to say, they are modifications of the spiritus lenis, but they differ from the other modifications by a vibration of certain portions of the mouth. I am unable to pronounce the different r's, and I shall therefore borrow their description from one of the highest authorities on this subject, Mr. Ellis. "In the trills," he writes, "the breath is emitted with sufficient force to cause a vibration, not merely of some membrane, but of some much more extensive soft part, as the uvula, tongue, or lips. In the Arabic grh (grhain), which is the same as the Northumberland burr (burgrh, Hágrhiut for Harriot), and the French Provençal r grasseyé (as, Paris c'est la France, Paghri c'est la Fgrhance), the uvula lies along the back part of the tongue, pointing to the teeth, and is very distinctly vibrated. If the tongue is more raised and the vibration indistinct or very slight, the result is the English r, in more, poor, while a still greater elevation of the tongue produces the r as heard after palatal vowels, as hear, mere, fire. These trills are so vocal that they form distinct syllables, as surf,

1 Universal Writing and Printing, by A. J. Ellis, B. A., 1856, p. 5.

serf, fur, fir, virtue, honor, and are with difficulty separable from the vowels. Hence, when a guttural vowel precedes, the effect of the r is scarcely audible. Thus laud, lord, father, farther, are scarcely distinguishable."

Professor Helmholtz describes r and I as follows: "In pronouncing r the stream of air is periodically entirely interrupted by the trembling of the soft palate or of the tip of the tongue, and we then get an intermittent noise, the peculiar jarring quality of which is produced by these very intermissions. In pronouncing 1, the moving soft lateral edges of the tongue produce, not entire interruptions, but oscillations in the force of air." 1

If the lips are trilled, the result is brh, a sound which children are fond of making, but which, like the corresponding spiritus asper, is of little importance in speaking. If the tongue is placed against the teeth, and its two lateral edges, or even one only, are made to vibrate, we hear the sound of l, which is easily intonable as well as the r.

We have thus exhausted one class of letters which all agree in this, that they can be pronounced by themselves, and that their pronunciation can be continued. In Greek, they are all included under the name of Hemiphona, or semi-vowels, while Sanskrit grammarians mention as their specific quality that, in pronouncing them, the two organs, the active and passive, which are necessary for the production of all consonantal noises, are not allowed to touch each other, but only to approach.2

1 l. c. p 116.

2 In Pâņini, i. 1, 9, y, r, l, v, are said to be pronounced with fshatsprishtam, slight touch; ś, sh, s, h, with vivṛitam, opening, or ishadvivṛitam, slight opening, or asprishtam, no contact.

Checks or Mutes.

We now come to the third and last class of letters, which are distinguished from all the rest by this, that for a time they stop the emission of breath altogether. They are called by the Greeks aphona, mutes, because they check all voice, or, what is the same, because they cannot be intoned. They differ, however, from the hisses or hard breathings, which likewise resist all intonation; for, while the hisses are emissions of breath, they, the mutes, are prohibitions of breath. They are formed, as the Sanskrit grammarians say, by complete contact of the active and passive organs. They will require very little explanation. If we bring the root of the tongue against the soft palate, we hear the consonantal noise of k. If we bring the tongue against the Fig. 21.

Fig. 22.

teeth, we hear the consonantal noise of t. If we bring the lower against the upper lip, we hear the consonantal noise of p. The real difference between

those three articulations consists in this, that in p,

Fig. 23.

two flat surfaces are struck against each other; in t, a sharp against a flat surface; in k, a round against a hollow surface. These three principal contacts can be modified. almost indefinitely, in some cases without perceptibly altering the articulation. If we pronounce ku, ka, ki, the point of contact between tongue and palate advances considerably without much influence on the character of the initial consonant. The same applies to the t contact. Here the essential point is that the tongue should strike against the wall formed by the teeth. But this contact may be effected

1. By flattening the tongue and bringing its edge against the alveolar part of the palate.

2. By making the tongue convex, and bringing the lower surface against the dome of the palate (these are the lingual or cacuminal letters in Sanskrit 2).

3. By making the tongue convex, and bringing the upper surface against the palate, the tip against the lower teeth (dorsal t in Bohemian).

4. By slightly opening the teeth and stopping the aperture by the rounded tongue, or by bringing the tongue against the teeth.

1 Brücke, p. 38.

2 Formerly called cerebral, a mistranslation of murddhanya, thought lessly repeated by many Sanskrit scholars and retained by others, on the ground that it is too absurd to mistake. Brücke, p. 37.

Most languages have only one t, the first or the fourth; some have two; but we seldom find more than two sets of dentals distinguished phonetically in one and the same dialect.

If we place the tongue in a position intermediate between the guttural and dental contact, we can produce various consonantal sounds which go by the general name of palatal. The click that can be produced by jerking the tongue, from the position in which ich and yea are formed, against the palate, shows the possibility of a definite and simple consonantal contact analogous to the two palatal breathings. That contact, however, is liable to many modifications, and it oscillates in different dialects between ky and tsh. The sound of ch in church, or Ital. cielo, is formed most easily if we place the tongue and teeth in the position described above for the formation of sh in sharp, and then stop the breath by complete contact between the tongue and the back of the teeth. Some physiologists, and among them Brücke, maintain that ch in English and Italian consists of two letters, t followed by sh, and should not be classed as a simple letter. There is some truth in this, which, however, has been greatly exaggerated from want of careful observation. Ch inay be said to consist of half t and half sh; but half t and half sh give only one whole consonant. There is an attempt of the organs at pronouncing t, but that attempt is frustrated or modified before it takes effect.2 If Sanskrit grammarians called the vowels

1 Brücke. p. 63, seq. He would, however, distinguish these concrete consonants from groups of consonants, such as §, V. 2 Du Bois-Reymond, Kadmus, p. 213.