108 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



Vowels : a. What is called the short a in the French is a 

 typical synthetic sound varying in the mouths of 

 different speakers, even the best instructed, from that 

 which it has in the English word add to the I la I inn 

 sound as heard in father, which is scarcely more 

 than a lengthening of the sound it acquires in the 

 word what (equal to o in not), and fairly reaches this 

 latter sound when heard in pas. In English, too, the 

 a is sometimes of a very uncertain character, especia 1 I y 

 in such words as last, glass, path, &c; also in such 

 words as bad, glad, mad, chaff, lag, salve, damp, rank, 

 grant, gap, care, gas. On these points .lexicographers 

 differ widely, and, as the speaker believed, much more 

 widely than the public. The difficulty in most cases 

 was held to be due chiefly to the imperfect discrimi- 

 nation by lexicographers of sounds which nearly all 

 clearly distinguish in pronouncing, but which even 

 those who do so can rarely recognize as unlike when 

 the differences are pointed out by another. The only 

 three authors who seem to have clearly perceived the 

 true sound of a in the examples given are Pulton & 

 Knight and Smart. All others, including Webster, 

 Worcester, Walker, Johnston, Reid, Nares, Jameson^ 

 Sheridan, Perry, Knowles, Jones, and Craig, whose 

 views had been carefully examined by the speaker, 

 had denoted the sound of this letter in these circum- 

 stances by symbols which would, if followed, entirely 

 alter the pronunciation of the English language. 

 Relative to the sound of the English i, while admitting 

 of course that the long sound as heard in mmd is a 

 true dipthong, equivalent to the Italian sound of a 

 followed quickly by the English long e, it was main- 

 tained that the English short i, as in bit, &c, is 

 not a mere shortening of the continental**, but is a 

 distinct sound which can be indefinitely prolonged 

 without change or tendency to assimilate that sound. 



