"TT" 



i: ! 



; 



H 'lii 



16 



REMARKS ON THE USE OF NAMES. 



correspondent. For all that is known to the pontrar^', the Romans may have had, 

 for example, as many qualities of their a as wo have in Knglisii ; hut as we know 

 only their " long" and " short" o, it is aimpl}- a matter of more or less of the same 

 sound of the letter, not a dilRrencc in sound. Our only resource, tliereforc, is to 

 ascertain the natural or aecjuired quantity of the vowels according to the standard 

 authorities, and i)ronounce them conformably therewith. 



It is the rule, witli few exceptions, tliat a vowel before two consonants, or before 

 the double consonants x and z, is long. We arc inclined to believe that in man^' 

 cases the full length of tl.e vowel itself is not implied, but rather the length of the 

 whole syllabic in which it occurs. For instance, in the word melnnorhi/nr/ms, the 

 vowel »/ is encased in five consonants ; and the time retiuired to apeak the whole 

 syllable -rhynch-, in metric composition, is what makes the y long. The Romans may 

 have had the y as short in quality as the y's in our word pygmy. Nevertheless, we 

 have no assurance of this, and can only mark the y long, which means that this syl- 

 lable is to be pronounced -rheench-. Take the word fnscescens, again, where each 

 vowel is followed by two consonants. In this country we seldom if ever hear any 

 thing but sounds of all three of the vowels as short as if the\- were Knglisli. We 

 must, iiowever, mark tiiem long, which is equivalent to directing tlie word to be 

 vivWciX foosnysnyncc. IJut it does not follow tiiat a naturally ishort vowel lengthened 

 only " b}- position" is to be sounded at full length. Thus, in fffinis, tnsignis, Ofiso- 

 letiis, from inJ-, in-, oh-, the long mark indicates the quantity of tlie syllable rather 

 than of the vowel. The chief exceptions above alluded to are furnished by the con- 

 currence of a nnite and a liquid, when tlie preceding vowel remains short, in prose, 

 at least. 



A vowel before a single consonant, or before another vowel, is short, as a rule ; 

 but there are so many exceptions to this, that each case of the kind requires to be 

 considered on its own merits. An accented vowel is likelv to be long from this 

 cause alone. Diphthongs arc long, except before another vowel. 



In Latin words derived from the Greek, the vowels e and o are likely to be long 

 or short, according to whether they stand for Greek eta or epsilon, oniicron or 

 omega. So, also, the Latin i is long when representing the Greek diphthong €i, as 

 it often does ; and a vowel is likely to be long when in any case it comes by the con- 

 traction of two or more vowels into one. Thus, the frequent Latin termination 

 -pus, from the Greek />oms, is long, or should be, like the proper Latin pes (foot). 



With these slight remarks, we take up the vowels, diphthongs, and consonants in 

 al[)habetieal order. 



A. Orthoepists reckon from four to seven sounds of this vowel in English, the 

 four usuall}- recognized being those heard in fa. , fat, far, fall . The English sounds 

 of rt \n fate, fat, and fall are luiknown in Latin. Long a in Latin is always sounded 

 as a in psalm; it is almost exactly the I^iglish interjection ah! — the name of the 

 letter r without any roll. Short Latin a is the same sound, but with less stress and 

 less prolonged, like the a in diadem, or the final a in Maria, Amelia, Hannah. Thus 



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1 



