1861. 



303 



[Vowels. 



Lepshis, Cq, Bapp and Schmeller an inverted e, viz., d, and in lack 

 of a better sign, I shall adopt the latter in the present work ; its 

 variation in her, hird, &c., I shall express by the same letter inverted 

 with an additional bar under it, viz., a. As regards the position 

 of the indistinct vowel- 

 sound in my diagram, it 

 is placed in the middle, 

 because it is equally near 

 to all the vowels, but it is 

 put nearer to a m father , 

 because in its pronuncia- 

 tion the tongue is scarce- 

 ly raised from the position 

 which it occupies in the 

 pronunciation of a in 



father. The fact of its being closely related to 6, which is its nearest 

 neighbor in the diagram, may be deduced from this circumstance, 

 that its amalgamation with the palatal r in bird, her, &c., is that 

 sound in the English language which approaches nearest to the sound 

 of the French eu in heure, &c.; moreover Dr. Briicke calls the sound 

 of in done, son, and of u in sun an imperfectly formed 6, 

 The present diagram 



'^ ;■ ^-- --^5 



and particular vowel- 

 sounds which are found 

 in the English language. 

 The general vowel-sounds 

 are marked with capital 

 letters, and the particular 

 vowel-sounds with small 

 letters. From this syn- 

 opsis, we see that there 



are in the English language five general and five particular vowel- 

 sounds, viz. : 



GENERAL VOWEL-SOUNDS. 



a in father, e in edge, i in machine, u m flute, o in note. 



PARTICULAR VOWEL-SOUNDS : 



a in all, a in fat, a in fare, u in hut, e in her. 

 [Rem. 1. The independent nature of the vowel a mfare has been 

 distinctly recognized by Worcester in his ^^ Critical Dictionary,'' and 



5 A 0=710 te. 



J. 



