112 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book II. 



cannot be founded without the vowels, that is, without the breath 

 pafling through the mouth. 



From what I have faid of the nature of vowels and confonants, 

 feveral particulars concerning the barbarous languages may be ex- 

 plaijied : And, i?«(?, as the vowels are abfolutely neceflary for the 

 pronunciation of language, and at the fame lime are fo much more 

 eaJlly pronounced than the confonants, it is very natural that the 

 barbarous languages, for tlie greater part, fliould have the ufe of all 

 the five. All of them, however, have not the whole^x'^. The Chi- 

 nefe has not the U, but in place of it ufes the diphthong EU. And 

 the fame is the cafe of even the Englifh language; which like the 

 Chinefe ufes the diphthong in place of the fimple vowel. But that 

 this is not the found of the Greek ypfilotiy is evident from what the 

 Halicarnaffian has told us, in his treatife of compofttion^ of the pro- 

 nunciation of that vowel, and which is preferved in the French lan- 

 guage. This alone may fhow us the difficulty even of the pronun- 

 ciation of language ; v/hen a language, which I reckon one of 

 the beft that is now fpoken in Europe, has not the ufe of one of 

 no more than Jive of the mod fimple founds of language. But 

 that the barbarous languages ftiould be very deficient in the confon- 

 ant?, is eafily accounted for from the difficulty of thejr pronuncia- 

 tion : And accordingly, the Chinefe language wants the confonants, B, 

 D, R, X, and Z * : The Huron language, in North America, wants the 

 confonants B, P, M, as I have before obferved f , alfo the confonants 

 r,V,G,N, and even the vowel U, which the Hurons cannot pronounce 

 for the reafons I have given in the paffiage quoted below J. And the 

 Peruvian language vi'ants no lefs than fix confonants, S, B, D, F, G, 



and 



* See the Mifcellaneous Pieces, relating to the Chinefe above quoted. Vol. I. p. 24. 



f Page III. 



4 Vol. 1. of Origin of Language, .2J edition p 479. — 48c. 



