376 ANALYTIC ORTHOGRAPHY. 
CHAPTER XVI. 
EXAMPLES. 
The difficulties attending the construction of a phonetic alphabet are so great, that those who have not spent many 
months over the task, can have no adequate conception of them. After the invention of an alphabet which seems theo- 
retically perfect, the luckless inventor too frequently finds, that when practically applied it will not realise his expecta- 
tions. Even should it work tolerably well, the difficult question arises how far to employ it properly. Phonetic spelling 
is more difficult in English than it would be in any other language, though if the Irish or Scotch pronunciation were 
adopted, or even that of the laboring classes in the agricultural districts, the task would be comparatively easy.— Phono- 
typic Journal, 1846, p. 156. 
In expressing the sounds of a new language . . . the missionary should be guided entirely by ear, without paying any 
regard to etymological considerations, which are too apt to mislead even the most accomplished scholar. Max Muller, p. 
xx... .we feel how essential it is, in a first attempt to fix a spoken language, that the writer should not be swayed by 
any hasty etymological theories. The missionary should give a true transcript of a spoken language, and leave it to others 
to decipher it. Id. lxxxi. 
§ 578. Some languages are readily written, even by children, and it is difficult for one 
who knows English alone, to believe that various languages have no more than the five 
primary vowels of Latin; or that the vowel of up is not universal. Yet in Dacdta, “The 
vowels are five in number, and have each one uniform sound,” except when nasalised, and 
“all the syllables are enunciated plainly and fully.” The vowels are “a in father, e in 
they, < in marine, o in go, and wu in food.” —Riggs. In Hawaiian, “ais always as in father, 
or shorter as in @ha, e in hate, i in machine, o in no, win food. The short sound of ¢ in bit 
seldom occurs.” — Wm. Ellis, Polynesian Researches. 
579. The unwritten Polynesian languages have perhaps more resemblance than French 
and Italian, Anglish and English, although they have been separated probably two thou- 
sand years; and Ellenic has been permanent for the last three centuries, whilst English 
has greatly varied, and is still quite unsettled. 
580. English is an unsettled language, because, being composite, its materials have not 
yet acquired their natural relations to each other, wherein it resembles a chemical mix- 
ture which requires many years or cycles before the results of the various affinities appear 
in a permanent crystallisation. 
581. The orthoepists blind themselves to the genius and tendencies of the language, and 
represent a jargon which no one uses but the child learning to read from divided syllables, 
who turns ‘li-on’ into lie on; or the German, who fancies that the first syllable of ‘phan- 
tom’ occurs in ‘elephant,’ because they resemble in German and French. 
582. We do not object to writing words syllabically, if the correct syllables are used—if 
gu in gun is admitted in dgony, rather than go or gone, the use of which would justify 
‘gone-shot’ for gunshot, and ‘ gone’r’ for gunner. Such syllabic spelling would be like a 
