rHo.\oi;nAi'UV. 221 



Let C = K. Now it is of littln account wliethcr wc distinguish the 

 allied G by a thickened base, or a grave accent — so also with B, P, 

 where the distinction lies in an additional loop. My notation is not cal- 

 culated to make a favorable impression upon the uneducated, but I con- 

 sider it to be founded upon such uniform principles as to make it more 

 desirable to the philologist, than if separate characters were used for 

 every variety of inflexion. I must confess that hahit held me to the 

 very last, in considering that the graves and acutes should have distinct 

 characters, although I had rejected the aspirates v, f, &c. at an early pe- 

 riod of my researches. You perceive that we have hit upon the same 

 word, "phonography." I use the nearly similarly derived word phono- 

 gram for a letter or character representing an invariable sound. 



I am unfavorably disposed towards double letters as x for ks and x 

 fur gz, ('as my accentuals would modify this character. j If they are 

 adopted, however, J should be retained for its Italian and German power, 

 when the French power might be represented by j and the Eng. j and g soft 

 by J (/inverted^ or better, by jj, representing a nnion of d and J Fr. 

 The dot of i and j should be rejected in print. If aspirate p must be 

 represented by F ('better ?) then English V must have the character L 

 and then we must have six additional characters for the aspirates of k, 

 q, d, t, s, z. Let there be uniformity throughout. 



]\Iy principal reason for preferring k to c is that the rotundity of the 

 form of the latter is a poor representative of the harshest letter of the al- 

 phabet, besides its heterogeneous use in the various languages of Europe. 



I am very glad that a new Alphabet has not been applied to the Eng- 

 lish language, because, judging from those which I have seen, the re- 

 sult would have been unsatisfactory. There should be a convention of 

 those favorable to the project, that every point might be discussed in or- 

 der. I think in such an event it would not require much time to de- 

 cide thatJi is better than o ('proposed by Kneeland and Antrini,j and the 

 English vowel standard the very worst that could be adopted, and 

 which would forever deter foreitrners from studying the language, in- 

 stead of drawing them to it. 



A new alphabet would affect etymology but little, as we would gain 

 in pure English the little that we lost in words of Latin origin. Be- 

 sides, the Italians are more interested in the Latin than wc are, and they 

 unhesitatingly sacrifice ph for jT, as in Filadelfia. But the pretence 

 about etymology is pure hypocrisy, one of Webster's greatest f milts 

 in the eyes of his columniators, being the changes by which he wished 

 to make many words etymologically correct, as fcther^ tung., labor, &.c. 



Yours, S. S. llALDliiMAK. 



