22 VOCAL SOUNDS OF 



In the seventh class I would comprehend those words which, in the advanced 

 state of a language, express a quality which is the cause of an effect that is 

 accompanied by the sound which has suggested the word — a natural transpo- 

 sition or extension of the meaning. The following may serve as an example : 



Mum is the English interjection for silence. How has it arisen.? When we 

 address erroneously a deaf mute as a person able to hear and speak, and he 

 desires to make us understand that he cannot speak, he compresses his lips and 

 breathes strongly against the palate (so decidedly does thought or feeling ani- 

 mate the organs of respiration, and so phonetic or sound-seeking is the nature 

 of man.) This produces a humming sound — um^ or mum. The same is ob- 

 served if children play the mute, or if the actor in the vaudeville wishes to 

 impress others that he is mute, or ought to be silent. Uni is the root of the 

 word Dumb ; but in German Dumm, now means stupid, that is, the cause of 

 silence ; as we, also, say for a dull person, " He has little to say for himself" 

 In ancient German poetry we find the expression. Die Mten und die Dum,men; 

 literally, the old ones and the stupid, and really meaning the old ones and the 

 young, because the young ought to be silent, or have nothing important to say. 

 This agrees with the views of all early nations, who, on the one hand, always 

 connect the idea of old with wisdom and authority, and on the other, that of 

 youth with the want of these qualities. We have changed all this, and have 

 "young men's parties," "young England," "young France." But such was the 

 view of those who made of the terms for old man, father, «fec., the names of 

 their highest offices — as yEpoi', senator, papa, abbot. 



These words, as a matter of course, cannot be' expected to belong to Laura. 



As the eighth class of words, we may mention those which are derived from sounds 

 which stand in an incidental, though natural, connexion with the objects which 

 they designate, and which are not therefore of a strictly symphenomenal nature. 

 The simplest of all vowel sounds is ^, (pronounced as in Italian,) or Ha; for it 

 is the mere breathing forth from a mouth opened before the breathing began. 

 If the mouth is closed again before the breathing wholly ceases, the sound Am 

 is heard ; if the breathing begins before the lips are parted, we have the sound 

 Ma; if the breathing precedes and succeeds the opening of the mouth, we have 

 Mam. What wonder, then, that children articulate, at the earliest period, the 

 sound Am, Ma ? What wonder that this sound is uttered so soon as mere ani- 

 mal crying gives way to articulation, and that the only want felt by the infant, 

 that of nourishment, urges it, according to the general organization of all human 

 beings, to breathe forth its desire in the sound Ma 7 What wonder if this first 

 articulate sound comes to be attached to the being who furnishes the nourish 

 ment, or the breast which yields it ? Has not even the bleating of the lamb the 

 sound of ma or maih in it ? Whenever this sound of the lamb is imitated, it is 

 done by the prolonged and tremulous sound of maih. What wonder, lastly, if 

 the sound ma or am, once having come to signify the being that gave birth, is 

 surrounded, by her affectionate care, with all the dearest associations of love 

 and holy disregard of self.'' 



