388 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tongue. Such departures have always arisen among colonists lon^ 

 and widely separated from the mother-country. It would be a con- 

 tradiction, therefore, of all historical precedents in this regard if any 

 American, native of the second generation, and bred in the United 

 States, were to speak English, or any other modern language, with 

 absolutely the same phonetic effect as a native of the mother-country. 

 It is an undoubted fact that decided differences of English pronuncia- 

 tion exist between the educated classes in England and in the United 

 States, and it is the object of this article to show in what these differ- 

 ences consist. 



A careful comparative study of British and American English re- 

 veals the important fact that the phonetic differences are not confined 

 to timbre of voice, or to accent and inflections, but that they are of a 

 more radical nature, and are to be found in the component vowel- 

 sounds themselves. It is not within the limits of this article to take 

 into comparative consideration the broad subject of the various ac- 

 cents and dialectic peculiarities which exist in various parts of the 

 United States and England, but it is intended to confine this phono- 

 logical analysis to such patent differences of speech as prevail between 

 educated Englishmen and the great mass of the more intelligent na- 

 tives of this country. As social and business tics between the two 

 countries are becoming constantly stronger and more direct, attention 

 is more frequently drawn to these existing inconsistencies of utterance. 

 Some Americans have in a measure modified their pronunciation to 

 accord with English usage, and some of our actors especially have 

 been at no small pains to reform their speech in accordance with the 

 English standard which has come to prevail in the principal theatres 

 of this country. 



It would greatly facilitate the analysis here undertaken if there 

 were some universal alphabet of the elementary sounds of all languages 

 into which a translation could be made of such special modifications 

 of vocal elements as are to be described. The nearest approach to 

 such a universal alphabet is the one invented by Alexander M. Bell, 

 and now successfully employed in the instruction of deaf mutes, but 

 as it is only known to comparatively few the more ordinary terms of 

 orthoepists will be used. 



The subject will be presented in the following order : 



1. Differences in vowel and diphthongal sounds. 



2. Differences in the consonants. 



3. Differences of syllabic accent. 



4. Differences of emphasis, inflections, and vocal timbre. 



Tlie subdivisions under these heads will be as far as practicable in 

 alphabetical order. 



DirFEHEXCES IN YowELS AND DiriiTiioxGS. — First in the order of 

 the vowels there arc the various sounds of the letter «, which furnish 

 Bomo of the most typical instances of the departures of the American 



