29 



The 32 vowels may each be nasalized by throwing the 

 breath down the nose instead of down the mouth, as is done with 

 eight in French — witness the words : 



Onde, containing ? nasalized, hoiite », emhUe ?, emploi *, hnmhle'^, 

 punch B, symbole, a diphthong = -&+-% and simple ^ + 1 . 



There are no other simple vowels (using the word in its 

 ordinary sense) than the 32 we have exemplified in English, 

 French, German, or Italian, or, we venture to think, in any 

 language of man. The sounds given to e, e, and i in the French 

 words greve, tete, and pique are not simple, but are true drawls ; 

 that is to say in each case the checked full form of a vowel is 

 followed by a slender one (« by -S^, s by i, and s by s), so that 

 the words might be written in English 



gray-ev, tay-et, and pee-ik. 



A careful analysis of the vowel sounds both simple and com- 

 pound that occur in the English, French, German, and Italian 

 tongues* (including as many as exist of the four forms of simple 

 vowels, and the corresponding forms of drawls and dipthongs), 

 shows German to have 50 oral sounds, English 34, French 33 

 oral ones and 8 of the less pleasing nasal ones, and Italian only 

 30 altogether. But the copious melody of English and German 

 is somewhat marred by the frequency of sibilants and by the 

 harsh meeting of consonants between words ; which latter defect 

 is often avoided in French by liaison, and always in Italian by 

 every words ending with a vowel, or I, or n. 



Now, besides the more obvious differences of quality in 

 vowels and the cadence of emphasis, they have an inherent 

 music that can be gauged by regular tones and semitones. Let 

 the following words, whereof the first eight contain the vowels 

 of the first series, be whispered in order without letting the voice 

 drop, or pausing till the ninth is reached, thus: Boom, moan, 

 dawn, hard, curve, age, d4, keen,f loud. 



A scale of eight notes will be heard rising from boom as a 

 key-note to the fourth, fifth, sixth, octave, and fourth, fifth, and 

 sixth above the octave : thus, starting in the speaker's own voice 

 from e below the base staff, it will run 



m =^.^d:^= ^^ 



. rt^^ 



An unreviaed analysis shown at the lecture gave like proportionate results, aa 

 did three marked stanzas of choice English, German, and French poetry. 



t This word is added to prevent the voice from being dropped at keen, as in 

 usually done at the last word of a list. 



