THE PRONUNCIATION OF ENGLISH. 



By Prof. Arthur St.\nley Kidd. M.A. 



('■ I'm not this countryman, you may tell by my tongue, sir. 

 They're cur'ous talkers i' this country, sir; the gentry's hard 

 work to hunderstand 'em." — Adam Bcde.) 



The importance of the correct pronunciation of English has 

 for the most part been overlooked by writers of text-books on 

 the English language. This is probably due to the fact that in 

 England itself there is a large cultured class which can secure in 

 some degree an approximation to a correct standard of speech on 

 the part of those who aspire to a place in good society. In the 

 colonies, ho.wever, especially when there is a second competing 

 language, there is no such check upon deviations from the 

 standard, and there seems to me to be a great danger of the 

 growth of an English pronunciation which recognises no standard 

 at all, or one very different from that of England itself. The 

 example of the United States is a case in point, and Australia 

 and South Africa may in time deviate from the standard to such 

 an extent that their English speech will be hardly understood in 

 the Mother Country. 



" We do have an appalling variety of accents in the United 

 States," says one of Gertrude Atherton's heroines. " I have 

 lived abroad long enough to discover that. When I am an old 

 maid I am going to mount the platform and preach the training 

 of the voice in childhood. I have taken a violent dislike to more 

 than one clever American man merely because he trailed his voice 

 through his nose. I don't mind our vices being criticised as 

 much as our crudities." 



AJatthew Arnold tells us in his Letters that he had to alter 

 his intonation in order to be understood in the United States. 



Now it may be true that many people in the States speak 

 with a good English accent, and that many are free from the 

 endemic nasalisation, Ixit the "general characteristic speech of 

 the country is not of a standard English type, and it is witli the 

 object of preventing Australia or South Africa from being also 

 differentiated by a widespread odious peculiarity that T write 

 this warning. 



The teachers of a country may do much to maintain or 

 create a good pronunciation, but they must set the example 

 themselves. In a country where many teachers arc not of 

 English origin, though professedly teachers of English, they 

 should receive a thorough instruction in correct pronunciation in 

 their training colleges. 



It is not my intention to lay stress upon the individual word, 

 for this is the least neglected part of the subject. It is on some 

 of the other elements of the correct pronunciation that I would 



