nm 



or the languages originating from it. — x is a oom pound of 

 c s.—y differs little in its powers from i. — And z is but a 

 softened s. 



Every step the inventor advances, the easier he finds the 

 succeeding. Having travelled through the analysis of the 

 two first columns, he has already discovered three vowels 

 and thirteen consonants ; in the remaining three columns he 

 has only two vowels and one consonant to add to his pos- 

 sessions, for all the other sounds, whether simple or com- 

 plex to be found in those columns, have already been ex- 

 amined and arranged in his alphabet. 



At this stage of the process, we cannot but reflect on the 

 astonishment he must have experienced, on thus discovering 

 the paucity of simple sounds existing in the complicated 

 variety of a language. Sixty-one syllables, containing forty- 

 eight distinct sounds, are reduced and simplified into nine- 

 teen ; and these nineteen are found in prosecuting the in- 

 vestigation, to be nearly sufficient to represent the entire of 

 a language. He might have previously reasoned him- 

 self into a conjecture that the simple sounds were much 

 fewer in number than the compound ; but until the com- 

 pletion of the experiment, the most sanguine imagination 

 could never have approached within many degrees of the 

 truth. 



Thus might a single individual have brought to perfection 

 this wonderful discovery. Indeed we are ahnost compel- 

 led to admit from its nature, that it could only have been 



