314 S. Porter on the Vowel Elements in Speech. 
words of Anglo-Saxon origin, most frequently from an ob -S. long 
0, as foot, good, bosom, cool, stool, tooth, do, &e.; an the A.-S. 
long ) corresponds to the Gothic long 0, and this to the Sandal 
long a, we have a regular precession from ato u. Examples in 
— to the same effect might be adduced from other lan- 
transition is ibe French wu (¢! 3 om a Latin u,—most ree 
from a long, ~~ sometimes “ee ashort vu, The same change 
is found to have occurred in the Italian of Lombardy, and one 
similar took si at some period in the Greek; the Polish y, 
which is a non-labial, but a etymologically to Sanskrit 
u, probably arose in a similar ma The Scotch age or 
gude, muzr, sune, suld, buck, (for mee moor, soon, fas d, book,) 
&ec., are noticeable i in thi is connecti ion. The vo wels ide spring 
from the u on this line, whether by direct ersiak or by the 
umlaut are somewhat diverse in themselves; but all admit of 
further precession or pre into an 7 non-labial and such as 
to betray no trace of o rom u. This has come to pass in 
dialects of Gavioarian, Fresh, Modern Greek, German, and 
other languages (see Dietz: Gram. T, 415); in English we have 
numerous cases of 1 aie A.-S. y as ‘amlaut of u,—as king, sin, 
kin, bridge, little, 
As for the eenaiasiad connection of the & group with the oth- 
ers,—we may observe in the German é and French ew somewhat 
of a proclivity to slide into a close & in pronunciation. In our 
virtue, merey, earth, &c. the vowels here followed by r have fal- 
len back into'an é sound. The open ¢ has a near relation to the 
open vowels of several groups,—as its place on the physiological 
map would render probable. Transition into it is easy especl ly 
from u, o and 4; and has taken place in sun, but, wp, mutton, in 
the vulgar tuck for took, sut for soot, &c., and in son, done, mon- 
key, nothing, mother, brother, &c. ‘We _ not whether the 
mither, brither of the Scotch are examples of ¢ from é, or from 
o by way of u ina form like the Ger. mutter, bruder; but the 
pretty == seem the more natural. From a, e and7z to & open, 
ces are numerous in unaccented syllables: as, liver, over, 
sobhie pillar, dollar, elixir, nadir, problem, predict, tyrant, Wo- 
man, Ou uba, Missouri, definite, digest ;—this before 7 is correct, 
but not approved in most other cases. 
The certain vowels to certain of the consonants 
well explained upon our scheme. Thus, the positions of the 
tongue for the open é and for the usual English 7,” requiring 
* On the “iste SecA conc lg ale and the continental r, neared on 
other nice points Parone ompecseerin catetelay ait we Hoe 
pared Introduction | tthe Dictionary Noted Names of Fiction, by William 
A. Wheeler, (Boston, 1865 f 
