SPEECH.] 



UNDULATORY FORCES. ACOUSTICS. 



287 



pipe, the air in the tube merely vibrates, and does not 

 move as a current. 



Speech. Speech is peculiar to man. Because speech 

 is not possessed by individuals deprived of the organs of 

 voice or hearing, it is not, therefore, to be concluded 

 that it originates in the mere possession of these organs. 

 Inferior animus are fully provided with the organs both 

 of hearing and of voice, and yet, in all essential respects, 

 they are destitute of speech. Speech, therefore, must be 

 considered under the light of a potentiality of man's in- 

 telligence, the condition of the exercise of which is the 

 presence of the organs of hearing and of voice. That is 

 to say, man is born susceptible, by the development of 

 his nervous system, of the acquisition of speech, provided 

 his organs of hearing and voice are perfect. But if man 

 be born susceptible of speech, it may be asked, why does 

 not the deaf-mute invent a language 1 He does invent a 

 language, but it is a language of expression independently 

 of speech ; lie fails to express his inward feelings by the 

 use of speech, because the defect of hearing prevents 

 him from discovering the sounds which his voice is 

 capable of producing. His language, therefore, is con- 

 fined to the other modes of expression by which an 

 intercommunication, however imperfect, can be carried 

 on between men. The deaf-mute might undoubtedly 

 carry the use of natural signs of expression much further, 

 were he not overwhelmed and overpowered by the multi- 

 of ideas which liis fellow-men around him possess, 

 and are continually striving to make him understand. It 

 may also be asked if, owing to this natural susceptibility 

 of ,'peech, every infant should not invent a language ? 

 Indeed, every infant does invent a language ; but as, long 

 before any progress is made in its language, the sounds 

 which it continually hears are caught up, it is impossible 

 to judge to what extent each individual is capable of 

 carrying such an invention. 



There is no more interesting speculation than to con- 

 sider the several stops by which language must have 

 arisen among men. It is easy to understand how, in 

 the rudest community of mankind, conventional signs 

 must have arisen of every description; nor is it diffi- 

 cult to perceive, that those sounds of speech which are 

 most easily produced, would quickly form a large share 

 of those conventional signs. But it forms no part of 

 our present design to investigate the origin of languages ; 

 it is more to the purpose to consider, in a few words, 

 how men came to understand the several acts concerned 

 in speech. At a certain period, then, in the progress 

 of mankind, it appears that languages of no inconsider- 

 able extent had already been formed, and yet that no 

 attention could have been paid to the individual sounds 

 composing those language*. Men spoke, and in that 

 speech employed words without the least reference to 

 letters, and, perhaps, with none even to syllables. The 

 curious inquiry, then, which arises is, in the tirst place, 

 how men were led to reduce speech to letters ; that is, 

 to analyse words into their elementary sounds. 



Wo may suppose that the difficulty of pronouncing 

 certain sounds, such as the words of a foreign language, 

 must have been the first circumstance which would lead 

 men to reflect on the modes by which speech is pro- 

 duced. Man's natural curiosity would not fail to engage 

 him more largely in this inquiry as soon as the subject 

 was suggested. Little progress, however, could be made 

 in this pursuit till some method of fixing the sounds by 

 name, and of representing them to one's self, or to 

 others, at periods more or less distant from their first 

 recognition, was invented. It may be supposed that 

 men had already acquired the art of depicting objects of 

 sight, were it no more than rude representations made 

 with a rod on the sands left by a receding sea. The 

 idea, however, of representing a sound by such a symbol 

 is plainly not of the same kind. To think of represent- 

 ing a sound by a symbol is manifestly a fresh step in 

 discovery. It required, in short, an effort of invention 

 to produce such a stretch of thought. But the moment 

 the idea arose, all difficulty must have vanished. No- 

 thing was easier than to observe the similar simple 

 sounds, occurring in the compound sounds, which con- 



stitute speech. The mere observation of the form of the 

 mouth, as certain simple sounds are uttered, would be 

 sufficient to afford a foundation for this kind of know- 

 ledge. What the original symbols, corresponding to 

 our modern alphabets were, is of little moment. The 

 first alphabets, doubtless, consisted of the representa- 

 tives of but a small number of sounds. It is easy, how- 

 ever, to perceive, that as soon as this kind of investiga- 

 tion, was fairly commenced, it would make rapid progress, 

 there being no great difficulty in discovering the colloca- 

 tion of the several parts of the mouth concerned in the 

 production of most of the simple sounds. Thus, by an 

 easy analysis, syllable-sounds would be reduced to letter- 

 sounds, and each letter would quickly come to be marked 

 by a particular symbol. The most remarkable effect of 

 tliis great discovery, simple as it seems to us, would un- 

 questionably be the rapid multiplication ot sound- 

 symbols that is to say, the vast extension of language. 

 The greatness of the discovery hardly strikes us at the 

 first sight. Some idea of the character of it is obtained 

 from the fable of words spoken becoming frozen at the 

 moment in their fixed forms, and not reaching the ear 

 until the return of a more genial temperature. Letters, 

 in short, arc the pictures of sounds, by which any sound 

 now pronounced is perpetuated, while the picture itself, 

 or a copy of it, shall endure. 



Speech, then, consists of combinations of sounds pro- 

 duced in the larynx, and variously modified in their 

 transition through the oral or nasal passages outwards. 

 No language exhausts all the sounds which can be pro- 

 duced in the passage of the voice outwards in this 

 manner. Languages may be described as composed of 

 those sounds which are most easily produced in the 

 passage of the voice from the larynx outwards into the 

 atmosphere. And languages differ from each other, 

 chiefly, by presenting various predominant groups of 

 such sounds. The chief distinction of the sounds of 

 speech depends on the way they are transmitted through 

 the oral canal before spoken of, or the nasal passage. 

 Another important distinction between articulate sounds 

 is, that some are only of momentary duration, taking 

 place during a sudden change in the conformation of 

 the mouth, and are not capable of prolongation by a 

 continued effusion of the breath ; wliile others can be 

 prolonged as long as a particular disposition of the 

 mouth and a constant expiration are maintained. 



The same sound produced in the larynx is converted 

 into any one of the vowel-sounds merely by a modifica- 

 tion of the parts of the mouth through which it passes. 

 The parts of the mouth concerned, have been tenned 

 the oral canal, and the oral opening. The oral canal, 

 it is to be remembered, is the space between the tongue 

 and the palate ; the oral opening is the aperture formed 

 by the lips. Some physiologists have described five 

 degrees of size in each of these two parts that is, five 

 degrees of size in the oral canal, and five degrees of size 

 in the oral opening. One sound, then, produced in the 

 larynx is converted into o, e, i, o, u, according to the 

 modifications in the size of these two parts. Thus, 

 when the size of the oral canal is in the third degree, 

 and the size of the oral opening is in the fifth or highest 

 degree, the act of voice is converted into the sound of 

 the English a in far. When the size of the oral canal 

 is in the second degree, and that of the oral opening in 

 the fourth degree, the sound of the English a in name 

 is produced. When the size of the oral canal is in the 

 first or lowest degree, and that of the oral opening in 

 the third degree, the sound of the English e in ilwme is 

 produced. When the size of the oral canal is in the 

 fourth degree, and that of the oral opening in the second 

 degree, the sound of the English o is produced When 

 the size of the oral canal is in the fifth or highest degree, 

 and that of the oral opening in the first or lowest degree, 

 the sound of u like oo in cool is produced. Of the 

 general truth of this statement, any person may satisfy 

 himself by remarking, when ho utters the broad a, how 

 much he opens his mouth, simply breathing forth tho 

 voice with open mouth. When, on the contrary, he, 

 with the same breath, attempts to pronounce e, he finds 



