208: “MAIOR<€:) BR? CONDER, (R'E. DiGi. ul. Dy MR eASSe. 
more apparent to scholars that we cannot really call one of 
such dialects older than the other, or point to any one of the 
oldest languages as the parent of all the others. 
Broadly disting gcuishing the sounds into four great groups— 
vowels, gutturals, idoniale: and labials, we fic that sounds 
which are uttered by the same parts of the mouth have a 
tendency to pass into one another; and that certain of the 
more delicate distinctions are not traceable to the earliest 
period. The guttural comes from the throat, and passes 
into the palatal; the dental is sounued within the teeth; 
the labial by aid of the lips, and in each case there is a cross 
distinction, according as the letter is strong, weak, or 
nazalised. In all cases the dentals are the most numerous, 
and the labials furnish the fewest distinctions of sound. But 
different languages differ greatly in the proportionate use of 
the three classes of sound; so that while nine-tenths of a 
Bushman’s words consist of egutturals with an added vowel, 
the soft and liquid speech of the Bechuana Kaffres consists 
mainly of palatals and labials with many vowels, such as 
seem natural to a thick-lipped people, who have, it may be 
observed, adopted none of those clicks which the Zulu 
borrows from the conquered Hottentot. 
The sounds of our own language are co-extensive with the 
more broadly distinguishable sounds of speech in general, 
although as regards both vowels and consonants there are 
many ‘well-known distinctions, which we do not mark in 
writing. As regards vowels the older systems do not dis- 
tinguish more than three or four, though the early Aryans 
found it necessary to have a notation for at least ten (five 
long and five short), and their descendants in the east 
have made yet further distinction. The Hebrew letters 
Aleph, Yod, and Vau, though not regarded by grammarians 
as vowels, have in fact aes sound an the three long vowels 
most commonly distinguished, while the Ain is a Pouttural 
vowel of which the sounds (for it represents several) can 
only be learned from Orientals, yet which (as we shall 
observe later) easily pass into that of the Aleph or of the 
Vau. 
As regards the gutturals there is, I think, not one used in 
Semitic speech which is not also found in European speech. 
In Turkish and Mongol speech, although the gutturals are 
even more numerous than in Semitic: languages, they are 
nevertheless freely interchanged in the various dialects, as 
Vambéry has shown. In the dialects of Palestine there is 
