THE 



POPULAR SCIENCE 

 MONTHLY. 



SEPTEMBER, 1876. 



VOICE IN MAN AND IN ANIMALS. 1 



By EMILE BLANCHARD, 



OF THE PARIS ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 

 II. 



IN all languages there exist sounds vowel and consonant repre- 

 sented by the letters of the alphabet. This, in the opinion of some 

 linguists, is an evidence of a common origin, while naturalists hold it 

 to be the inevitable effect of the functions of an organ whose confor- 

 mation scarcely differs in any perceptible degree between one race 

 and another. Nevertheless languages differ vei'y much in the number 

 of their intonations. If, in this respect, the languages of uncivilized 

 nations stand lowest, it does-not necessarily follow that the languages 

 of the most highly-civilized peoples must hold the highest rank. The 

 Hindustani is distinguished by an unparalleled abundance of conso- 

 nants ; the Semitic languages surpass the Greek and Latin, as also the 

 languages of modern Europe ; the dialects of Polynesia afford instances 

 of the greatest poverty of consonant sounds. Of the Hurons and 

 Mohawks of North America, who habitually kept the mouth open, 

 it is asserted that they knew nothing of the use of the labials 

 articulations so natural to us that we might be disposed to regard 

 them as instinctive. Sundry nations eschew the use of hissing and 

 trilling sounds ; 2 others have no gutturals. Some years ago, pref- 

 erences for harshness or for softness of language seemed to us to 

 show that neither the vocal organs nor the auditory perceptions are 

 absolutely identical in all races of mankind; 3 this is now rendered 

 more probable by multiplied observations and experiments. We know 

 how great is the difficulty of rendering certain sounds in a foreign 

 language, and hence it is that words change in migrating from place 



r. 



1 Translated from the French by J. Fitzgerald, A. M. 2 /, s, z, I, 



3 " Voyage au pole sud et dans l'Oceanie ; " " Anthropologic," par M. Eraile Blan- 

 chard," 1854. 



vol. ix. 33 



