Miscellanies. 197 



25. Notices of Proposals for Reforming ike Orthography of the Eng- 

 lish Language. — The imperfections of English orthography are so great 

 and so manifest, that no one can fail to desire its amendment. 



The legitimate objects of an improved English orthography are, (1.) an 

 enumeration of all the simple sounds in the language; (2.) an appropria- 

 tion of one character, and of one only, to each simple sound; (3.) the 

 invention of an entirely new character, or else a selection of such char- 

 acters now in use as would be most readily understood by all who employ 

 the Roman alphabet; (4.) that analogies between certain sounds, as p 

 and h, s and z, should be denoted by corresponding analogies between the 

 characters; (5.) that a regard should be had to the ease or conciseness of 

 writing ; and (6.) that the names of the letters should be simplified and 

 rendered uniform. 



1. Mr. A. D. Sproat, of Chillicothe, Ohio, in a letter to the senior edi- 

 tor, dated Feb. 22, 1834, proposes to introduce thirty nine entirely new 

 characters, viz. twelve for pure vowel sounds, and twenty seven for con- 

 sonant sounds. The chief peculiarities of his system are, that the sub- 

 tonics h, z, etc. are expressed by curving one of the lines of the corre- 

 sponding atonies, p, s, etc. ; that the nasal vowels are expressed by cross- 

 ing the stem of the corresponding simple vowels ; and that the length of 

 the vowels is denoted by the length of the arm of the letter. These are 

 ingenious suggestions. 



2. Mr. Michael H. Barton, of Geneva, N. Y. (the editor of " Some- 

 thing New" Boston, 1830,) in the first number of " The Morning Sun" 

 Geneva, N. Y., Feb. 25, 1839, proposes, after twenty years' attention to 

 the subject, a plan for reforming the present English orthography. 



He finds twelve pure vowel sounds, and twenty one simple consonant 

 sounds, besides three diphthongs, and eight double consonants. 



For all'these he offers two distinct modes of notation ; one, by means 

 of entirely new characters, which he appears to have taken at random ; 

 the other, by availing himself of the present English alphabet, together 

 with a few Greek characters, which he employs without any care in the 

 selection. 



In carrying out the latter mode of notation, he proposes (1.) to reject 

 all superfluous letters ; as, da for day, do for dough, gost, hole for lohole, no 

 hrhicia, rite for write, shot, tru,woud for woidd; (2.) to transpose certain 

 letters; as, center, gentclmen, truhel; (3.) to substitute the appropriate 

 character ; as, aty for eighty, confushun, hoze for ivhose, na for neigh, nu 

 for new, oba for obey, ohade for obeyed, ov for of, ruf for rough, savyer for 

 saviour, wade for weighed; and (4.) to use simple u for the pronoun you, 

 and simple b for the verb be. 



3. Dr. Joseph Torrey, of Salem, Mass., in a letter to the editors, dated 

 Dec. 1839, dwells largely on the imperfection of our existing orthography, 

 and on the acknowledged advantages of a more perfect system. He finds 



