70 BROOMALL : 



y preceding a vowel, vacillates between its original t or d 

 sound and its palatalized ch or j sound respectively. For 

 example, the lexicographer sanctions nature as natyur or 

 nachiir and educate as edyucate or edjucatc. In these speci- 

 mens, the observer will note that English // is equivalent to 

 lu or yoo and that therefore the t or d is followed by an / or y 

 sound, although not graphically represented. 



It is the purpose of this article to illustrate the extent of 

 this vacillation of ^ or ^ in support of the foregoing proposi- 

 tions, particularly as we find it acknowledged by the dictionary. 



This phonetic process by which // or ty becomes c/i, and 

 d'l or dy becomes /, arises from the mechanical conditions of 

 utterance. Sounds made by different organs of speech, as p 

 and r in pray, where p is made by the lips and r by the 

 tongue, are easily combined because lips and tongue inde- 

 pendently act at the same time without mutual interference. 

 On the contrary, in the case of the combination of / with y 

 or i the tongue is the actor in both sounds and must shift its 

 position quickly. In pronouncing / the tongue is nearly to 

 the teeth and the lips relaxed, while in pronouncing y, 'i or e 

 the tongue is drawn backward and upward and the lips 

 retracted. Therefore in order to pronounce the word vatiirc 

 as natyure, the tongue is required in an unaccented syllable to 

 assume rapidly two positions successively the opposite of their 

 predecessors. From t \.o y and then from y to 71 are thus 

 extreme changes of position of tongue and lips. To decrease 

 the effort required to enunciate these sounds separately, accom- 

 modation takes place and the t and y or / are pronounced as 

 one sound with a position of the tongue that fuses both and 

 produces the sound ch. While the purist still insists on 

 natyurc and literatyure, he has succumbed to question as 

 q2ieschon and soldier as soljer because the additional consonant 

 makes the combination still more awkward and because the 

 words are in more common use. And in time he will say 

 nachure and literachure because the palatalization, now admit- 

 ted by the Dictionary, regularly increases in use until the 



