190 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



Here, then, we have five primaries, three (or four) intermediates,, 

 four compounds, in all twelve (or thirteen to include li) under which, 

 I believe, all vowel sounds now received in English may properly be 

 brought. 



The primaries as they hold the extreme positions and the equi- 

 distant way-stations, the octaves, are fixed points that are easily 

 verified, and will suffer neither increase nor diminution. Between 

 each pair in the ascending scale there is room for many intermediates 

 which no doubt will be formed. As language progresses finer dis- 

 tinctions are drawn. These find place particularly within the higher 

 octaves. Why it should be we are not told, but the fact is that our 

 speech has a tendency to mount higher and still higher, until, like 

 vaulting ambition, it overleaps itself and falls into compounds. The 

 process of multiplying intermediates and fusing compounds will no 

 doubt continue as it has heretofore gone on, in the face of academies 

 and all accepted orthographical modes. We may shut our eyes but 

 must move with the stream. In these circumstances it is a part of 

 wisdom to note a change when it is made and to accommodate one's 

 self to that change. We need not make ourselves anxious lest 

 future generations should not be aware how well their fathei's of the 

 nineteenth centuiy spelt. They will desire to know chiefly how we 

 sound our language. As for etymology, it is reasonably safe already, 

 and is scarcely furthered by parading in words a mass of useless or 

 misleading characters, be they never so beautiful. Nature is careful 

 that organs which have outlived their usefulness should not be kept 

 at full length as a clog on animals, but shall to all intents and 

 purposes vanish. Philologers will find the rudimentary forms of 

 words without further aid from absolute letters which have their 

 proper place in storehouses such as dictionaries. 



A word upon the forms assigned to intermediates and compounds. 

 The acute accent shows that the number of vibrations per second has 

 been increased from that of the octave ; in other words, we have 

 sharpened the normal sound. Accents are frequent in printed French, 

 and are therefore familiar to the majority of persons who i-ead. The 

 subscript may not meet with so ready acceptance, but is used in 

 Greek for the same purpose, is not hard to make and would, I think 

 serve well to indicate the two- fold character of compounds. 



