125 



stopped consonants are not at all common in the latter; they 

 occur for instance in Swedish and Italian*). Syllables consist- 

 ing of a long vowel -|- a long consonant are, I think, unknown 

 in most of them**). 



In Russian, all the sounds are about equally long, or, at 

 all events, the differences in quantity are so little that they are 

 of no importance for the language***). But even with respect 

 to those languages which, like English, French, German, Danish 

 etc., distinguish between long and short sounds of every kind, 

 I think I can assert that the differences in quantity are less 

 than in the Eskimo language. In other words, a long vowel or 

 consonant in English, French etc. is of shorter duration than 

 the corresponding long sound in Greenlandic. 



So much the more strongly is the language characterized 

 by the above types of its phonetical quantity, and so much the 

 greater is the difficulty for the foreigner who is trying to acquire 

 these peculiarities which are so different from what he has been 

 used to in his own language. 



§ 21. Dynamic Accent and Rhythm. The following 

 examples are arranged in such a manner that those words are 

 given first whose syllables are all constructed alike (two (three) 

 short syllables or two (three) long syllables), then such words 

 where long and short syllables are combined in various ways. 



Л Jespersen: Fonetik 'î 391. 



**) They are found in Swedish as exceptional cases. Cf. Ax. Kock: "Die 

 All- und Nenschwedische Accentuierung" (Strassburg 19(tl) g 11. The 

 rule for Swedish is otherwise (g 7) : "Eine siibe mit hauptaccent enthält 

 nur einen langen laut, eine Silbe mit halbaccent nur einen halblangen 

 laut; die übrigen laute dieser Silben sind kurz." 



'*•) Sweet: Russian Pronounciation, Transact. Philol. Soc. 1877 — 79. — 

 Jespersen: Fonetik g 391. 



