72 BROOMALL : 



nation has become Spanish nacion, French nation, Italian 

 nazio7ie and English nation;"^' in which the i has converted the 

 / into sounds represented by th, s, dz and sh respectively. So, 

 too, the intrusive i or e before a vowel changes a preceding 

 guttural as well as a dental. Thus, Latin caritas is now 

 English charity and French chaj'ite (f^ = English sh), old 

 English cild and ci?'ice {c =^ k) are now child and chtirch ; and 

 L,atin factimi, directum and lacte are now Spanish hccho, 

 derecho and leche. But the present purpose is to illustrate only 

 the first stage of palatalization by which / and d become ch 

 and j respectively. 



This palatalization of / or d before / or c followed by 

 another vowel and equivalent to y is a characteristic of Eng- 

 lish pronunciation recognized b}^ its present speakers to such 

 a degree that they understand dontchou for don't you and 

 didjou for did you. The English ear — at this time — seems 

 to be trained to accept the / or d, either palatalized or not, 

 without any misunderstanding of the words of which the 

 sounds are components. Hence, immediately as immejatcly, 

 duke as juke, Indian as Injun and Tuesday as Chucsday, ama- 

 teur as amacheur, courteous as courchoiis , mature as machure, 

 opport^ine as opporchune , are intelligible. These palataliza- 

 tions are not sanctioned by the dictionary. We now turn to 

 those that are. 



The Dictionary sanctions the pronunciation of / as / or ch 

 in the following words : — 



Capitulate (5) t, capture, caricature (2), congratulate (5), conjec- 

 ture, conjuncture, debenture, declinature, digestion, effectuate (2), 

 effectual (2), estuary (2), eventual (5), feature (3), fixture, flatulent (5), 



* In fact these derivatives of Latin natio are based on the stem 

 nation as it appears in the oblique cases nationem, nalionis, etc., but the 

 nominative is cited because the lexicfigrapher has tVuniliari/.cd us \\ith 

 this form. 



t'riie numeral in parenthesis represents the nnml>er of words, based 

 on the cited word, in which the same phonetic peculiarilv occurs. Thus 

 nature (8) includes natural, naturally, naturalize, etc. 



