OF ARTS AND SCIENCES. 173 



the cause, of the change from kinn to chin should have been sufficient. 

 The cause of this phenomenon seems to be as follows. 



" K and g being formed by the base of the tongue, where there is 

 not much room, to form them readily, the mouth must be more open 

 than for the palatals, which are formed where the tongue is thinner 

 and less confined, so that the latter are close when compared with the 

 former. I and e have also a close aperture ; more close, indeed, than 

 suits the ready production of k, but corresponding with that of tsh^ 

 &c. There is a tendency to place the organs in a position to form 

 the subsequent vowel or liquid* during the formation of the preced- 

 ing consonant, so that if I is intended to be formed, the previous 

 consonant will be more likely to be a palatal than a guttural. Hence 

 tshi^ &c., are more readily formed than ki. 



" Mr. Hale, {PUlol. U. S. Expl. Exp.,) followed by Dr. Comstock, 

 perverts J to its French power, and C to that of sh. One of Mr. 

 Ellis's characters for shi is the long f terminated below like Italic f; 

 the other the Greek ^, which is a useless perversion. For zhi he 

 usually employs z with a tail like 3, and ^ reversed. There is a rem- 

 nant of propriety left in his use of j (deprived of its dot) for the ele- 

 ment following I mouille in French, n circumflex in Spanish, and a 

 number of other consonants in the Sclavonic languages. The ele- 

 ment, however, which follows the Spanish circumflex n is nasal, not 

 pure like that in the English word onion, which is often ched as con- 

 taining the Spanish sound. The analysis which introduced this j in 

 French should have discovered a corresponding labial in the same 

 language, and a palatal in English. 



"Dr. Rapp's ' indiflTerent' consonants, well known in German, are 



* In play, pray, the tongue is in tiie position of I, r, wliilst the lips are closed 

 to form p. Mr. Ellis formerly wrote hul as the last syllable of table; he now 

 writes tab'l, as if there ought to be a second vowel, as in tabula. In general, r 

 may have the phases of I. The combination ^jr (as in praij) can, like pi, be pro- 

 nounced and form a syllable without a vowel, notwithstanding Mr. Ellis's former 

 opinion of such a syllable being an " orthographic monster," a monstrosity with 

 which the Bohemians seem to be familiar. Let / and r follow the word stop, when 

 we will have the English words s<o/>/>^ 5«o/;;^cr. Compare barbie, barber ; battle, 

 hatter; bushel, brazier; hammer with the German hnmjn el; and sugar with its 

 Bohemian form cukr. The two modes of English orthography ter, tre, when final, 

 are equally incorrect: Mr. Ellis, however, puts the vowel in ferry in the finals 

 of letter, martyr, maker, alter, theatre, miner, power, &c., to which the Westminster 

 Review objects. 



