on the Englifh Alphabet. 169 
_ edly. “ Y, when it follows a confonant, is a 
*« vowel; when it precedes either vowel or diph- 
* thong, isa confonant, as ye, young. It is thought 
** by fome to be in all cafes a vowel. But it may 
* be obferved of y as of w,* that it follows a vowel 
*¢ without any hiatus, as rofy ‘youth.” 
Perhaps he did not confider that, like colours and 
mufical ‘notes, the founds of language may break 
¥ off 
Lal 
* A fimilar difcordant account of Wis alfo given by 
_ the fame author: “for w,” he fays, ‘we often write w 
“ after a vowel, to make a diphthong; as view, &c.” But 
how make a diphthong from a vowel and a confonant, 
which in another part of his Grammar he feems to think 
that wis? As: “ of w, which in diphthongs is often an 
** undoubted vowel, fome Grammarians have doubted 
** whether it ever be aconfonant ; and rather as it is called a 
* double wor ou, as water may be refolved into owater ;— 
* but letters of the fame sounp are always reckoned confo- 
** nants in other Alphabets: and it may be obferved, that 
** w follows a vowel without any hiatus or difficulty of 
“ utterance, as frofty Winter.’? It follows, therefore, that 
U in the Latin, Spanifh, and Italian; and ow the French 
adverb, have hitherto been mif-named; being all of nearly 
the fame found—and therefore Confonants! In the 
German Alphabet, indeed, the w is called veigh, and 
founds fometimes like a weak Englifh v; but moftly as 
“ w. The two vowels of the word root, and of feveral 
other words with the fame vowels, have the found of the 
true and fimple U or W; but if any one fhould pronounce 
the words dlood and flood in this manner, a diale& of fuch 
ruflicity would provoke the mirth of an auditory; fo far 
does cuftom, in fome cafes, pervert the more general 
analogy of vocal fymbols. | 
