404 ' Mr. Harvey’s Objervations 
X. 
X is an unneceffary fymbol of two pair of corn-. 
fonants, fs and gz. Few miftakes, however, arife 
from the ufe of it. 
Z. 
Z, though noticed before, under the letter S, 
requires thus much further to be faid concerning it, 
that, if it precede a fingle vowel or any diphthong, 
beginning with i; as ia, ie, io, u, it always pre- 
ferves its foft found; and it is fome fuch diphthong 
(but in no refpect a confonant) which unites therewith 
to form the found of the French J, which is merely 
a convenient and unperverted abbreviation in that 
language for the letters z-ya,* as it is called in 
repeating the alphabet ; as jardin is refolvable into 
z-yar,din; joindre, into z-ywoin,dre; juflice, into 
z-yous,tecce; making only two fyllables of each word, 
as divided by the comma. Whereas the letters zh 
cannot be refolved in any fuch founds; for 4 can 
only ftand for the afpirate, ha, or, if it will be 
allowed, for the found of etch. Hence, if z fhould be 
combined with one of thefe founds, what other 
found would be the refult than z-ha or z-tch?. Tech 
being here founded as at the end of the word thatch, 
which might be explained alfo by fimilar founds, 
though 
* In reality it is only z-y, which, according to the vowel 
which may happen to follow, is-one or other of the fol- 
lowing founds: z-ya, z-ye, z-yee, 2-70, ZOU. 
