124 



NA TURE 



[July 29, 1909 



subject has at last succeeded in making a position for 

 itself, and its existence is recognised in the chief 

 universities of England and Scotland. Its further 

 progress will certainly be assisted by this able account 

 of the methods and accomplishments of the science. 



SPEECH. 

 The Science of Speech, an Elementary Manual of 

 English Phonetics for Teachers. By Benjamin 

 Dumville. Pp. xii + 207. (Cambridge: University 

 Tutorial Press, Ltd., 1909.) Price 2s. 6d. 



THIS is a concise, accurate, and interesting little 

 manual, written by one who is evidently a 

 master of the subject of phonetics, and knows how 

 to communicate information. Nowhere have we 

 seen so good an account of the muscular inovements 

 and the positions of the articulating apparatus. The 

 b(X)k is intended for teachers, who often, in these 

 days, are required to teach the elements of phonetics, 

 or, at all events, to train children in the art of correct 

 pronunciation and good reading. It is not a book to 

 be read hastily. It requires a careful experimental 

 study of the movements described, with the aid of 

 a mirror, but the descriptions are so clear and the 

 methods so simple and convincing that the accurate 

 knowledge acquired will well repay all the trouble. 

 The nature of vowels, consonants, diphthongs, di- 

 graphs, the distinction between voice and whispering, 

 the various kinds of whispers, and the nature of the 

 aspirate are fully e.xplained. 



There is an interesting chapter on the sounds in 

 connected speech, such as accent, emphasis, intonation, 

 assimilation, and variations in pitch. The author, 

 perhaps, scarcely attaches the importance to pitch, 

 or rather to variations in pitch in the words or syllables 

 of a spoken sentence, which we are inclined to do, and 

 which is brought out in a striking way when the 

 vibrations of the sounds of a sentence are recorded 

 on a .rapidly moving surface. We are much interested 

 in the chapter on "The Organic Basis of English," 

 which must appeal to physiologists, the point being 

 that, by repetition, during the early period when speech 

 is acquired, a kind of habit is imposed on the articu- 

 lating organs, and, we would add, on the nerve centres 

 involved; this will be determined by the sounds the 

 child imitates, or is taught to pronounce. There will 

 thus be a kind of organic habit for each language, a 

 consideration that may explain how difficult it i^s for 

 one trained from early days in the English language 

 to acquire, in later life, the true intonation of good 

 French. The author gives a striking illustration, 

 p. 141, of the difference between the English t and 

 its French equivalent, so that an Englishman uttering 

 the sentence Ton th^ t'a-l-il 61c ta totix? (Has your 

 tea taken away your cough?) would probablv' not 

 give the t the peculiar softness or quality that can 

 only be obtained by pronouncing the t, as the French 

 do, by starting with the tip of the tongue from the 

 back of the front teeth, instead of a little behind, as 

 is done in English speech (see Fig. 27). 



The last two chapters deal with spelling reform and 

 with the important pedagogic question of whether a 

 phonetic training is helpful to children who are learn- 

 NO. 2074, VOL. 81] 



ing to read. We will not follow the author here, but 

 be content with stating that he presents his arguments 

 forcibly but with fairness. Children must at first be 

 taught by the ear alone, and by frequent repetition ; 

 sounds that are distinctly bad, like the peculiar tone 

 of many resident in London or in the south, or the 

 nasal draw-1 of the west of Scotland, must be got rid 

 of; and the ear of the child must hear, at all events 

 during school hours, the tones of pure English. In 

 not a few cases, probably, the work of the teacher 

 may be undone by the sounds of the child's home. 

 The author refers briefly to the use of the phonograph. 

 The intonation of the gramophone is far superior^ and 

 we would advise that the Gramophone Company should 

 be induced to take, say, a dozen records from highly 

 trained and correct voices, illustrating the tones of 

 pure and undefiled English. These would be of 

 immense service to teachers. The Gramophone Com- 

 pany has a record of the voice of the late Canon 

 Fleming, uttering some of the prayers in the Morning 

 Service of the Church of England, which fully illus- 

 trates what we mean. 



It is a pity that a better set of symbols for phonetic 

 speech sounds has not been invented. Some are very 

 grotesque, but, still worse, with a weak eyesight, some 

 of the symbols are difficult to discriminate. The 

 sj'mbols of Graham Bell seem to us to be better than 

 those mostly in vogue, and it is only right to mention 

 that these are used by so high an authority as Mr. 

 Sweet in his "Primer of Phonetics." Mr. Dumville 

 is to be congratulated on having produced an excellent 

 book on what is truly the science of speech. 



John G. McKendrick. 



.4 TEXT-BOOK OF OTOLOGY. 



Lehrbiich dcr Ohrcnheilkundc fiir Arzte unit 

 Studierende. By Dr. Paul Ostmann. Pp. viii + 533. 

 (Leipzig : Verlag von F. C. W. Vogel, 1909.) Price 

 18 marks. 



THE name of Dr. Paul Ostmann is well known to 

 otologists, not only in Europe, but in the 

 British Islands and the United States. A text-book 

 upon diseases of the ear from his pen is, therefore, 

 welcome, even though it be disappointing. Like all 

 text-books which hail from the German Empire, how- 

 ever, it is marked by that peculiar German conceit 

 which, whilst giving ample prominence to the work 

 of compatriots, ignores, or, at the most, dismisses 

 with curt comment, that of equall)' prominent scientific 

 labourers of other countries. Dr. Paul Ostmann 's 

 text-book abounds with references to German aura! 

 surgeons, but in all its 533 pages only some seventeen 

 British or American otologists receive mention, and 

 the names of some of these are spelled incorrectly. 

 Picking out, from motives of curiosity, the names 

 quoted from among those surgeons who belong to our 

 own country, we find that Handfield Jones, Toynbee, 

 Hinton, Ogston, Macewen, Walker Downie, Dundas 

 Grant, and Yearsley alone receive acknowledgment for 

 their work, whilst Cheatle, Pritchard, Barr, and many 

 other names of equal lustre in the domain of diseases 

 of the ear are ignored completely. In a work issued 

 at the present time, when so much that is of lasting; 



