722, Reviews. [ Oct., 
rounded on all sides by miracles transcending all we are accustomed to 
call miraculous, and yet disclosing to the genius of an Euler ora Newton 
laws which admit of the most minute mathematical determination.” 
Having investigated all the possible letters in an alphabet, we may 
next examine what portions of the ideal alphabet are possessed by 
individual languages. Here we find that English and Hindustani, 
tongues made up of the admixture of several elements, retain and blend 
the peculiarities of each of their component parts. Thus, while we 
possess the Gothic w, we also have equivalents coming back again 
through the Norman-French in gu, as wise and disguise, wily and guile, 
&c. Again, ch and j are Romance or Norman, nevertheless these sounds 
are introduced into Saxon words, as choose (cedsan), chew (ceowan), 
child (cild), cheap (ceap), birch, finch, speech, much, &c. 
The Mohawks, the so-called Six Nations, and other natives of North 
America, have no labials. The Society Islanders have no gutturals, in 
which the Semitic languages are so strong. Rather unfortunately the 
- first Englishman with whom they became acquainted was one whom 
they could only call Captain Tute (Cook), a pronunciation that we 
might match in our nurseries. Dentals exist in every known tongue, 
though Chinese, Mexicans, Peruvians, Hurons, and several other 
dialects of both South and North America never pronounce the d. 
“So perfect a language as Sanskrit has no f, no soft sibilants, no short 
eando; Greek has no y, no w, no f, no soft sibilants ; Latin likewise has 
no soft sibilants, no §, ¢, :v. English is deficient in guttural breathing, 
like the German ach and ich,” &c. &c. 
Hindustani (admitting Sanskrit, Persian, Arabic, and Turkish 
words) has 48 consonants; Sanskrit, 87; Turkish, 32; Persian, 31; 
Arabic, 28; Zulu Kafir, 26, besides clicks; Hebrew, 23; English, 20 ; 
Greek, 17, of which 3 are compound; Latin, 17, of which 1 is com- 
pound ; Mongolian, 17 or 18; Finnish, 11; Polynesian, 10 (no dia- 
lect has more—some less); some Australian have 8, with three varia- 
tions; the Melanesian dialects have 12, 13, 14, and more consonants. 
Even when the same consonant does occur in two languages, slight 
shades of difference of pronunciation make it almost impossible to 
write down the sounds of an unknown tongue. An amusing instance 
is given of an American gentleman who resided for a long time at 
Constantinople, but who was sure of the pronunciation of no word in 
the Turkish language but what he wrote bactshtasch, meaning bakhshish. 
L,r are frequently mistaken, and in Hawaian it is almost impossible to 
distinguish between k and ¢; thus their late king’s name is written 
indifferently Tamehama or Kamehama. Occasionally certain pro- 
nunciations are slurred over by certain individuals. Without Pro- 
fessor Max Miiller’s diagrams most of us know some one who would 
call three, free, and have heard nothing called nuffen. 
Many of the changes which have been reduced to rule may be attri- 
buted to phonetic decay, a most agreeable euphuism for laziness. Lazi- 
ness leads us to drop some letters, and to slur over the pronunciation 
of others, combining two into some third sound. Thus, pére and mere 
are easier to pronounce than pater and mater; the English night is 
