SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XV. No. 361 



tual habit, by simply practising syllables in unison with taps of the 

 fingers. The broken English of foreigners who have been long 

 resident in our midst is due entirely to phonetic neglect, and not to 

 any inherent difficulty in the sounds of the language. 



I can foresee that this statement will be called in question, be- 

 cause many teachers of languages have to be included among the 

 speakers of broken English. Nevertheless, the fact remains, that 

 such speakers labor under a disability which might have been pre- 

 vented, and which may still be removed, by application of the 

 principle that the separate formation of any element, in any given 

 way, is feasible by any person, and that elementary combination is 

 merely elementary sequence. 



One result of this principle is to show the pre-eminent impor- 

 tance of the study of phonetic elements. Another result is to show 

 the necessity of some means of indicating these elements independ- 

 ently of ordinary letters, because the latter have already, in all 

 our minds, fixed associations with certain sounds. We require 

 some symbols for pure phonetic qualities, — analogous to the Ara- 

 bic ciphers for numbers, the algebraic signs, and the notation for 

 music. We want characters which have an absolute value in the 

 mouth — in all mouths — to enable us to teach and discuss the 

 sounds of our respective languages, and to express our exact mean- 

 ing in regard to them. We do not want to apply such signs in- 

 stead of letters and in substitution for alphabetic writing, but we 

 want to use them in interpretation of letters. The attempt to in- 

 terpret letters by other letters is never free from ambiguity. 



The symbols which make up what I call " Visible Speech " are 

 precisely such as here described. They constitute a universal 

 alphabet, because by means of them the sounds of any language 

 are expressed with such directiveness that they can be reproduced 

 from the writing by any expert in the system. But the main func- 

 tion of the symbols is fulfilled when they have taught the learner 

 the phonetic value of ordinary letters.^Our familiar ABC, the Ger- 

 man alphabet, the Greek, the Arabic, and every other system of 

 letters, may be preserved unchanged, while the symbols of " Visi- 

 ble Speech " are available as a key to them all. 



In one of the early experiments with the system, the professor of 

 Oriental languages in the University of Edinburgh dictated some 

 peculiar East Indian words which were entirely new to me when I 

 wrote them ; and, when they were reproduced by the boys who 

 were then the sole interpreters of the system. Professor Reid de- 

 clared that he could not get his students to pronounce the same 

 words with similar accuracy, after six months' instruction. 



In this case the young readers heard the words for the first time 

 when they themselves pronounced them. The explanation is, that 

 the symbolic writing exhibited to their initiated eye the organic 

 mechanism of the sounds, and they had only to follow this, and the 

 original effect was necessarily reproduced without thought of 

 sound on their part, or of any thing but the organic positions. 



Some very interesting and crucial tests were applied by Mr. 

 Alexander John Ellis, — the one man in England competent to ap- 

 ply such tests, as he was the author of the most exact analysis of 

 speech-sounds, and the most complete phonetic alphabet that had 

 then been published. I quote Mr. Ellis's own description of the 

 experiments : — 



" The mode of procedure was as follows : Mr. Bell sent his sons, 

 who were to read the writing, out of the room, — it is interesting 

 to know that the one who read all the words in this case had only 

 had five weeks' instruction in the use of the alphabet, — and I dic- 

 tated slowly and distinctly the words which I wished to be written. 

 These consisted of a few words in Latin, pronounced first as at 

 Eton, then as in Italy, and then according to some theoretical no- 

 tions of how the Latins might have uttered them. Then came 

 some English provincialisms and affected pronunciations ; the 

 words ' how odd ' being given in several distinct ways. Suddenly 

 German provincialisms were introduced ; then discriminations of 

 sounds often confused, in Polish, German, Dutch, and Swiss words ; 

 French and English words, and German and French words; some 

 Arabic, some Cockney English, with an introduced Arabic guttur- 

 al, some mispronounced Spanish, and a variety of shades of vowels 

 and diphthongs. The result was perfectly satisfactory ; that is, Mr. 

 Bell wrote down my queer and purposely exaggerated pronuncia- 

 tions and mispronunciations, and delicate distinctions, in such a 



manner that his son, not having heard them, so uttered them as 

 to surprise me by the extremely correct echo of my own voice. 

 Accent, tone, drawl, brevity, indistinctness, were all reproduced 

 with surprising accuracy. Being on the watch, I could, as it were, 

 trace the alphabet in the lips of the reader. I think, then, that 

 Mr. Bell is justified in the somewhat bold title which he has as- 

 sumed for his mode of writing, — ' Visible Speech.' " 



Mr. Ellis subsequently had the whole phonetic theory of the sys- 

 tem, and the plan of symbolization, explained to him, when he had' 

 the magnanimity to write, — 



" Mr. Melville Bell's scheme will, I believe and hope, thoroughly 

 supersede one on which I have labored for many years, and ex- 

 pended much money." 



I venture to say that the whole history of authorship does not 

 exhibit a course of action more altruistic and honorable than that 

 of Alexander John Ellis in his reception of " Visible Speech." 



Mr. Ellis, of course, embodied the classifications of " Visible 

 Speech " in his subsequent works. His system of " Glossotype "' 

 or " Glossic " was designed for the purpose of enabling all the new 

 phonetic distinctions to be represented by Roman letters. This it 

 accomplished by inversions and other arrangements of the letters,, 

 making up an alphabet, complete but arbitrary, and consequently 

 difficult to use without constant reference to tables. " Glosso- 

 type " is a translation of " Visible Speech " into letters that are to- . 

 be found in every printing-office. It, of course, entirely lacks the 

 grand characteristic of " Visible Speech ; " namely, self-interpreting 

 letters, which exhibit in their forms a symbolic record of what the 

 mouth must do in order to pronounce their sounds. " Glossotype " 

 may be correctly described as " ' Visible Speech ' without its visi- 

 bility." 



My speaking to you here in Harvard reminds me that when I 

 paid my first visit to America, in 1868, the then president of this 

 university. Dr. Thomas Hill, was, I found, much interested in 

 "Visible Speech," and in phonetics generally. I had the honor of 

 meeting in Dr. Hill's drawing-room a gathering of professors and 

 others, whom he had invited to receive some demonstrations of the 

 system. To my surprise. Dr. Hill showed himself almost as well 

 acquainted with my system as I was myself. I wrote on the 

 blackboard for his interpretation, and he wrote for mine. Yet he 

 had had no oral instruction in the method, but had studied it en- 

 tirely from the written description. 



I mention these facts simply to encourage those of you who may 

 not have already entered on the study, to make practical investiga- 

 tion for yourselves. In this way you will, at all events, acquire a 

 knowledge of the varieties of linguistic sound, and also see the or- 

 ganic formation of familiar elements, which you may possibly have 

 been forming all your lives without knowing how you formed 

 them ; and the power of analyzing familiar sounds will ultimately 

 become a guide to the formation of new and unfamiliar sounds. 



We live in a busy world, and cannot afford to spend much time, 

 even in the most interesting studies, unless they involve also our 

 material interests. I may therefore point out, that a knowledge of 

 the whole round of speech-actions can be acquired, under proper 

 oral instruction, in a period so brief that the busiest student need 

 not be deterred from undertaking the work. The study is in itself 

 most interesting, and it is, besides, of important material benefit to 

 those who master it. In primary schools, in schools for the deaf, 

 and in all the fields of teaching, there is an increasing demand for 

 skilled phoneticians ; and to you, members of the Modern Lan- 

 guage Association, this demand naturally looks for supply. 



I am most desirous, before I leave the world, to see the subject 

 of phonetics added to the curriculum in universities and normal 

 schools. I may add, that, in furtherance of this object, I have pre- 

 sented, through the Bureau of Education, and with the kind co- 

 operation of the commissioner of education, a copy of my recent 

 work on "Vocal Physiology and Visible Speech," to every univer- 

 sity and normal school in the United States. The same presenta- 

 tion has also been extended to the universities and normal schools 

 in Great Britain and the British Colonies. The opening of this 

 Phonetic Section of the Modern Language Association may be 

 taken as an indication of the growing interest in the subject, and 

 an omen of its future prominence among educational studies. 

 You will, of course, have many aspects of phonetics presented to 



