PROCESSES OF CHANGE IN PRONUNCIATION. 193 



maintained in their primitive form (Numisii, Papisii, Fusii). 

 Speaking metaphorically, we might say that people avoided pro- 

 nouncing these names in the same free-and-easy manner as the rest 

 of the language. The law of substitution of Germanic consonants, 

 which is usually taken as the type and model of phonetic laws, pre- 

 sents occasional examples of sounds returned upon. It would, 

 however, be in our opinion a mistake to offer the substitution of the 

 Germanic consonants as a fact that was accomplished at a given 

 moment in the history of the Indo-European languages, and the 

 direction of which can be fixed within the limits of two dates. Sub- 

 stitutions were going on all through the middle ages, as is shown 

 by the manner in which Latin words are written in German, and is 

 still going on, as may be perceived when a Bavarian or a man of 

 "Wurtemberg talks French. Accustomed by the usage of their own 

 language to a certain way of pronouncing the explosives, they carry 

 the habit everywhere. 



As to the origin of this phenomenon, it is hardly credible that a 

 population should have agreed to disfigure the sounds of their lan- 

 guage by substituting, according to their whim, hard sounds for 

 soft, aspirates for hard sounds, and soft sounds for aspirates. It is 

 easier to comprehend that an alien people, adopting an Indo-Euro- 

 pean language, should have brought to it the habits of its native pro- 

 nunciation. A second substitution of consonants, which proceeded 

 from the south of Germany northward, corresponds probably with a 

 new afflux of foreign population, which, bringing similar habits of 

 pronunciation to an idiom already once transposed, displaced the 

 consonants in a new degree, but still in the same direction. The 

 difference between the High German and the Low German and Scan- 

 dinavian idioms may be explained in some such way as this. 



A fourth and last principle of phonetic changes is that they are 

 effected according to the law of least effort. In view of the causes 

 already considered, the tendency of language is to economize effort, 

 and consequently to replace sounds that exact some degree of energy 

 with weaker sounds. Thus the Latin labials p and b become v in 

 French ; some letters cease to .be pronounced ; and assimilations take 

 place in groups of consonants. If we should listen to a Roman of the 

 second or third century from the foundation of the city, we should 

 probably be surprised at the energy of his pronunciation and the 

 intensity of his articulations. Yet it would be incorrect to take this 

 as a constant rule. The shortening and the softening down of words 

 do not always result in diminution of effort. New groups of con- 

 sonants are formed in the course of changes, which do not require 

 less expenditure, but sometimes more. Reduction of time is thus 

 often attained at the cost of increase of effort. 



VOL. LII.— 15 



