ON THE SPEECH OF BRUTES. 



neither diftinguiih words, nor fyllables, nor letters, 

 unlefs they have accidentally feme agreement with the 

 words, fyllables and letters known to me in my own 

 language. Nay, even the merely different enunciation 

 in known languages, renders all the fyllables and letters 

 either totally unintelligible or not plain, if it deviate 

 conliderably from the habitual enunciation, efpecially 

 when the words are delivered fomewhat haftily. I 

 might here appeal to the Jewifh enunciation of the. 

 Hebrew, which renders that language untelligible 

 even to thofe that are verfed in it, without changing 

 fyllables and letters. But I will adduce a general and 

 more familiar example. Do not the people of the 

 ^Northern counties fpeak the fame Englifh as the Lon- 

 doner ? and yet the Londoner will not always under- 

 ffcand them, till he is accuflomed to their dialed. 



I cannot here indeed fpeak from my own experience^ 

 but perhaps, I may not greatly err in fuppoling, that 

 in this, or any other provincial dialecl, there may be 

 tones in which the unpraclifed ear can difcover neither 

 fyllables nor letters. Do fuch people therefore fpeak 

 fomewhat of the animal language in inarticulate tones ? 



There are likewife languages, as is univerfally known 

 from the accounts of travellers, to the pronunciation 

 whereof the letters in ufe with us are not competent ; 

 and whofe fpeeeh is therefore compared by the traveller 

 to the noife of certain animals, e. g. to that of the 

 turkey-cock, for the fake of giving an idea of it to their 

 countrymen. 



Thus, I fhould think, fome tones of the brutes 

 might be exprefTed by certain mulical inftruments. 

 Confequently, they could be exprefTed by notes. 

 Confequently they could be written down, and if they 



were 



