624 
Correspondence. 
[October, 
VOCAL SOUNDS. 
To the Editor of the Journal of Science. 
Sir, — Your last volume notices Faber’s speaking-machine as 
uttering fourteen distindf vocal sounds, and combining them into 
any words in any language. The elemental sounds of English 
are usually reckoned at about forty. Better analysis reduces 
these elements of speech, just as it has reduced the elements of 
chemistry; e.g., the elementary vowels are six, namely, e, a, ah, 
au, o, 00. I believe an harmonic odtave e makes the difference 
between p and b, t and d, k and g , / and v, sh and zh, s and z, 
th in thigh, and th in thy; and this lower odfave may be the 
“ drone ” of which you speak, and which is itself an element. 
Then come l, r, m, n, and ng, making, I think, ten elemental 
sounds in English. Then we must reckon the German ch (which 
survives in Scotland), the French u , and I think there is a sound 
peculiar to Polish, and other tongues supply other elements, 
How are these pronounced by a machine speaking only fourteen 
elements? — I am, &c., 
Hugh Browne. 
Nottingham, August 28, 1881. 
