106 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



THIRTY-SECOND REGULAR MEETING. 



December 21, 1880. 



Savage and Civilized Orthoepy. 

 By LESTER F. WARD. 



This paper consists principally of remarks and strictures 

 on the first chapter of the Introduction to the Study of In- 

 dian Languages* 



After quoting a preliminary paragraph from this work 

 relating to the complexity and vagueness of the sounds 

 in savage languages, Mr. Ward said that the two leading 

 facts enunciated in it were : 1st, the multiplicity of sounds 

 which the human races have embodied in speech ; and 2d, 

 the existence and prevalence of pseudo-sounds or the un- 

 stable forms of vocalic and articulate utterance which the 

 author of the work quoted from designates as " synthetic or 

 undifferentiated sounds." He claimed that philologists had 

 failed sufficiently to recognize these two fundamental ele- 

 ments of linguistic study and proceeded to show from num- 

 erous examples drawn from the French, German, Italian, 

 Spanish and English languages that these characteristics, so 

 far from being confined to savage or barbaric tongues are 

 common to all languages even the most cultured. The most 

 general fact adduced in support of this view was that all for- 

 eigners in learning another language pronounce it at first, 

 and generally always, with an "accent" peculiar to their 

 vernacular, and that this accent is often the most marked 

 in sounds which all the books teach to be common to both 

 languages ; as in the attempt of Germans to pronounce the 

 English word " will." 



He accounted for the multiplicity of languages on the 

 globe on strictly natural principles The facts of phonology 

 not less than those of morphology are the result of origi- 



* Introduction to the Study of Indian Languages, by J. W. Powell, 

 Washington, 1880; 4°. 



