194 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



usually discarded from the class of independent consonants. Rh may 

 be trilled at the teeth as well as the back of the mouth, and for that 

 reason is oftea cla.ssed as a dental — others argue that it is a semi- 

 vowel. While the formation point of liquids is not so defined or 

 pointed as that for mutes, I believe, the balance of authority regards 

 Eh as guttural consonant. The consideration which has seemed to 

 -me conclusive is its function in our older English, where its 

 guttural character is very pronounced. So far back as James I's 

 reign Hume, the grammarian, held w and wh as labials, and had for 

 testimony the evidence of his lips. The intei'change of v and w in 

 many of our dialects and as between German and English gives 

 •countenance to his view, while thy argument from analogy under 

 Grimm's law i.s at least not against him, for instances are found on 

 both sides plentifully. But other men have organs of speech and find 

 that they pronounce w and wh clearly, while their lips ai-e held force- 

 ably apart. In this plight the historical argument is of weight. W 

 ordinarily represents the hard g of our older tongue. As for wh it is 

 a curious transposition. We do not pronounce it in that form but 

 ■rather as it was spelled, hw ; not what, but hwat ; a palpable guttural. 

 X has two forms, ks and gs ; expect, exact ; it is differentiated into 

 its elements like q, and should thei'efore I suppose be dropped. I do 

 not give it place in the table so much because of its necessity as to 

 •<!all attention to the nature of the sibilants. They belong to every 

 group and coalesce with every class. In standard English we do not 

 retain ps, waps, the older sibilant of the B group which is now heard 

 only among children, but convert it into sp, wasp. Of western speech 

 probably Greek is the only one in which it is thoroughly embedded. 



Maiy divide consonants into whispered and voiced. K, t, p, it is 

 said, ai'e whispered ; h (hard) th, v, are voiced. But the second set 

 may be whispered as well as the first, and the first, though evidently 

 thinner, may be voiced as well as the second. Again, all medials, 

 mutes, sibilants, liquids, admit both of whisj)ering and voicing. I 

 wish to go further, for I deem the matter important, and say that all 

 sounds in speech, vowels and consonants, not only should be but for 

 •clear enunciation must be both voiced and whispeied. In whisper 

 you observe the mode of sound-production more accurately, detect an 

 -error more quickly, and may remedy it with greater ease. Those 

 who labor under defects of .speech as lisping, stammering, stuttering, 



