Professor Latham on Phonetics, 



421 



the Transactions of the Philosophical Society at Cambridge 

 (vol. iii.), we get the order of the vowels as established on 

 acoustic principles. The four sounds of the 



1. a, as in fate, = as, 



2. e, as in feet, = /, 



3. oo, as in look, =s o, 



4. o, as in note, = u, 



are shown to be in sequence. Between, however, each of the 

 vowels in question there are certain intermediate sounds. Thus 

 the e fermee of the French (common in most tongues) is in- 

 termediate to 1 and 2. 



The il of the Germans = u French, — y Danish, is inter- 

 mediate to 2 and 3. 



The o chiuso of the Italians is intermediate to 3 and 4. 

 Hence the full sequence is as follows: — 



1. a, as in fate, = a?. 



2. e fermee, French, = at* 



3. ee, as in feet, m i. 



4. The German u = il. 



5. The oo, as in look, — u. 



6. The o chiuso = 6. 



7. The o in note = o. 



This is all, in respect to the system of the vowels, that the 

 author feels certain of. The further questions as to the places 

 of the a in father, and of the u in but, are open to fuller inves- 

 tigation. Besides this, there also remains open to closer re- 

 searches, the question as to whether the arrangement of the 

 vowels is linear or circular, that is, whether the extreme sounds 

 of the o (as in note) and of the a (as in fate) may not be in the 

 same relation to each other as ai and i, i and il, &c, or at least 

 as eg and i, i and u, u and o respectively. 



Now assuming for the present a linear arrangement of the 

 vowels beginning with the a in fate, and ending with the o in 

 note ; considering also that it is only with the consonants akin 

 to v and g that a sequence with the vowels is recognised ; 

 omitting, moreover, the intermediate sounds of a!, il and 6 for 

 the sake of precision, we have for the articulations that have 

 fallen within our inquiries the following arrangement, ex- 

 hibiting a series of sequences rather than any symmetrical 

 system : — 



ce = a in fate. 



i ■=■ ee in feet. 



u = oo in look. 



o — o in note. 



or else, 



