194 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



usually discarded from tlie class of independent consonants. Rh may 

 be ti'illed at the teeth as well as the back of the mouth, and for that 

 reason is oftea classed as a dental — others argue that it is a semi- 

 vowel. While the formation point of liquids is not so defined or 

 pointed as that for mutes, I believe, the balance of authority regards 

 Rh as guttural consonant. The consideration which has seemed to 

 me conclusive is its function in our older English, where its 

 guttural character is very pronounced. So far back as James I's 

 reign Hume, the grammarian, held w and wh as labials, and had for 

 testimony the evidence of his lips. The interchange of v and w in 

 many of our dialects and as between German and English gives 

 countenance to his view, while thy argument from analogy under 

 Grimm's law is at least not against him, for instances are found on 

 both sides plentifully. But other men have organs of speech and find 

 that they pronounce w and wh clearly, while their lips are held force- 

 ably apart. In this plight the historical argument is of weight. W 

 ordinarily repi-esents the hard g of our older tongue. As for wh it is 

 a curious transposition. We do not pi'onounce it in that form but 

 rather as it was spelled, hw ; not what, but hwat ; a paljjable guttural. 

 X has two foi-ms, ks and gs ; expect, exact ; it is differentiated into 

 its elements like q, and should therefore I suppose be dropped. I do 

 not give it place in the table so much because of its necessity as to 

 call attention to the nature of the sibilants. They belong to every 

 group and coalesce with every class. In standard English we do not 

 retain ])S, waps, the older sil)ilant of the B group which is now heard 

 only among children, but convert it into sp, wasp. Of western speech 

 probably Greek is the only one in which it is thoroughly embedded. 



Mai'y divide consonants into whispered and voiced. K, t, p, it is 

 said, are whispered ; h (hard) th, v, are voiced. But the second set 

 may be whispered as well as the first, and the first, though evidently 

 thinner, may be voiced as well as the second. Again, all medials, 

 -mutes, sibilants, liquids, admit both of whispering and voicing. I 

 wish to go further, for J deem the matter important, and say that all 

 sounds in speech, vowels and consonants, not only should be but for 

 clear enunciation must be both voiced and whispered. In whisper 

 you observe the mode of sound-production more accurately, detect an 

 error more quickly, and may remedy it with greater ease. Tlio.se 

 who labor under defects of .speech as lisping, stammering, stuttering, 



