ill 



18 



iiif 



Id 

 I, 



t 





REMARKS ON THE USE OF NAMES. 



I 



III 



if M 



lill 



;t 1 



nil 



&c. "We suspect that some of the less evident powers ascribed by orthocpists to 

 various vowels, are not inherent in the vowels themselves, but due to consonantal 

 uiodiiication of tlie sound. 



Let us add tiiat orthoepists commonly and with great propriety* recognize wlint 

 they call the ''neutral" vowel-sound, a quality so slight and obscure, that any one 

 of the vowels may express it indifferentl}'. Thus, if we pronounce the word martyr 

 as rapidly as p( ,sible, it makes scarcely an}- appreciable difference whether it be 

 written martar, marter, martir, martor, martur, or martyr; as we say scarce!}' any 

 thing more than martr, the six " neutral" vowels are phonetically interchangeable. 



DiPFmiONGS. 



In diphthongs, each v A must be sounded, and the two sounds be smoothly 

 combined. Two vowels coming together do not necessarily form a diphtliong. For 

 example, aer is a word of two syllables, and ae'don one of three ; tlie vowels in 

 these cases to be separately and distinctly uttered, as in English aerial. Proper 

 diphthongs, »". e., two vowel-sounds combined to make a third different from either, 

 are comparative!}- rare ; and all the following components of diphtliongs also come 

 together without combining. 



^ consists of ah-ay, which when rapidly spoken becomes so nearly like Latin 

 long e (see above) as to be practically the same. It was originally written ai, and 

 is by some directed to be so sounded. 



AI is a very composite sound, t itself is a compound, being ah-ee, the whole 

 being therefore ah-afi-ee, which when run together becomes very near!}- our English 

 eye or tlie pronoun /. It seems quite like the French naif, naive, or English Lnife. 



A and O do not combine, and seldom come together. 



AU is oftcnest heard, but wrongly, as in cause, or as aw in awl, law, atc/ul. It 

 is like the ow in how, now, owl. It is precisely the German an, as in aud). 



E and A do not combine ; they frequently come together, especially at the 

 ends of words, but each is separately pronounced. E. g., yEne-as Bore-as, Arde-a. 



EI is frequent. The analysis is ay-ah-ee, contracted to a drawling sound little 

 different from long English a in mate ; more exactly, English ei in vein, eight. 



E and O do not combine. E-os, E-npsaltria, &c. 



EU is equal to ay-oo. Strongly and rapidly uttered, it becomes the long Eng- 

 lish u in tiihe, ve in due, etv in few, eu mfeiid, ou in you; and especially when initial 

 represents the whole word yon. For example Eugenes = Yotigenes = Ayoogenes. It 

 seldom occurs, except in Greek words. 



lA, IE, II, 10, lU do not combine. The very frequent ia, especially ending a 

 word, and the it, so frequent in the genitives of persons' names, are always two full 

 syllables. The common iu, in the ending of words makes two syllables: e.g., 

 spuri-us. So seri-cs, rati-o have each three syllables. Some apparent diphthongs 

 of vocal t with a following vowel, are really of consonantal i, which is_/, pronounced 

 y ; as plebeius, ^= plele-jus, T^xonounccA plehe-yus. 



i!:n 



