A L P H 
feveral letters to the fame power and found, as in the He¬ 
brew d and v, and the ordinary Latin c and k, f and p!t; 
or by reckoning double letters among the fimple elements 
of fpeech, as in the Hebrew y, the Greek £ and the 
Latin q (cu), x (cs), and the j confonant, or jod. Defi¬ 
cient in divers refpefts, efpecially in regard of vowels, of 
which there are fev'en or eight kinds commonly ufed, tho’ 
the Latin alphabet only takes notice of five, whereof i 
and u, according to our Englifh pronunciation, are not 
properly vowels, but dipthongs. Add to this, that the 
difference among vowels, in refpeft of long and fiiort, is 
not fufficiently provided for. The ancients, we know, ufed 
to exprefs a long vowel by doubling its character, asamaa- 
bam, naata, rce,/cedes, fanciijjimiis; though the vowel z, in- 
ftead of being doubled, was frequently lengthened, as 
.ffiDlus, pIso, vlvus. The ways ufed in Englifh for 
lengthening and abbreviating vowels, viz. by adding e 
mute to the end of a fyllable in order to prolong it, and 
doubling the following confonants for the fhortening of a 
vowel, as wane wann, ware warr, See. or elfe by inferting 
fome other vowel for the lengthening of it, as meat met, 
read red, Sec. are all improper, becaufe thefign ought ever 
to be where the found is. As to their powers, again, thefe 
are not always fixed to the fame fignification: the vowels, 
for inftance, are generally acknowledged to have each of 
them feveral founds. Thus the power of the vowel e is 
expreffed in writing no Iefs than fix different ways, viz. by 
c, as in he, me, fie ; by ee, in three, free-, by ie, in field,yield, 
chief-, by ea, in near, dear, hear-, by eo, in people ; by i, in 
privilege. So is the power of the vowel a; as in all, aul, 
aw, fault, caught, which are only various ways of writing 
the fame long vowel; befides the other diftinCt ways of ex¬ 
prefling the fame vowel when ufed fhort. The power of 
o is written five ways: o, as in to, who, move-, oe, as in doe; 
co, in moon, noon; ou, in could, would; wo, in two; and fo of 
the reft. Nor are the confonants of more determinate 
powers; witnefs the different pronunciation of the fame 
letter c in the fame word circo, and of g in negligence. To 
fay no more, the letters c, f, and t, are ufed alike to denote 
the fame power; and the letter/hs commonly ufed for.z; 
and, which is yet worfe, fome letters of the fame name 
and fliape are ufed at one time for vowels, and at another 
for confonants, as /, v, w,y. From this confufion in the 
power of letters there arife divers irregularities ; as, that 
fome words are diftinguifiled in writing which are the fame 
in pronunciation, as cejjio and JeJJia, Sec. and others are dif- 
tinguifhedin pronunciation which are the fame in writing. 
Hence alfo the Latin male is a diflyllable, and the Englifh 
male a monofyllable. The names alfo in mod alphabets 
are very improperly expreffed by words of divers fylla- 
bles, alpha, beta, Sec. in which refpedt the Roman and 
Englifh alphabets, which only name the letters by their 
powers, have greatly the advantage over the reft. Lafily, 
their figures are not well concerted ; there being nothing 
in the characters of the vowels anfwerable to the different 
degrees of apertion ; nor in the confonants analogous to 
the agreements or difagreements thereof. 
The learned author of Hermes informs us, that to about 
twenty plain elementary founds we owe that variety of ar¬ 
ticulate voices which have been fufficient to explain the 
fentiments of fuch an innumerable multitude as all the 
paft and prefent generations of men. Mr. Sheridan fays, 
that the number of fimple founds in our tongue are twen¬ 
ty-eight; while Dr. Kenrick inlifts, that we have only 
eleven diftintft fpecies of articulate founds, which even by 
contraction, prolongation, and compofition, are increafed 
only to the number of fixteen ; every fyllable or articulate 
found in our language being one of the number. Bifhop 
Wilkins and Dr. William Holder fpeak of thirty-three 
diftinCt founds. 
After the decompofition of language into the elementary 
founds, the next ftep towards the notation of it by alphabeti¬ 
cal characters, would be the deli neation of a feparate mark or 
letter to reprefent each found; which marks, though few 
in number, would admit of fuch a variety of arrange- 
ABE r\ 367 
ments and combinations, as might be capable of producing 
that infinity of articulate founds wlii,ch compofe language. 
The ingenious Wachter, in his Natura et Scriptura Con¬ 
cordia, p. 64, endeavours to fliew, that ten marks or cha¬ 
racters are fufficient for this purpofe. His fcheme is as 
follows: 
Genu's. 
Figura. 
Potefas. 
Vocal 
O 
a. e. i. 0. it. 
Guttural 
O 
I 
k. e. ch. 
q. g. h. 
Lingual 
z 
1 . 
Lingual 
0 t 
1 : 
d. t. 
Lingual 
r. 
Dental 
n 
f. 
Labial 
-3 
b. p. 
Labial 
01 
m. 
Labial 
G 
s. ph. v. w. 
r | 
NafaT 
A 
n. 
If this be the cafe, then the molt fimple alphabet, which 
confifted only of thirteen letters, mult have been abun¬ 
dantly fufficient to anfwer all the purpofes of mankind, 
and much of our twenty-four letter alphabet may appear 
fuperfluous. That able mathematician Tacquet has cal¬ 
culated the various combinations of the twenty-four let- 
tars, even without any repetition, to amount to no fewer 
than 620,448,401,733,239,439,360,000; while Clavius 
makes them only 5,852,616,738,497,664,00a. Either of 
thefe numbers, however, is infinite to the human concep¬ 
tions, and much more than fufficient to exprefs all the 
founds that ever were articulated by man. As there are 
more founds in fome languages than in others, it follows 
of courfe, that the number of elementary characters or 
letters muft vary in the alphabets of different languages. 
The following is the fcheme of the Englifh alphabet, as 
given by Mr. Sheridan in his Rhetorical Grammar, p.9. 
Number of fimple founds in our tongue, 28. 
312 3 2 3 11 i 
a a a e o o e i u 
hall hat hate beer note noofe bet fit but 
w y 
fhort 00 fhort ee 
19 Confonants, 
2 Superfuous, 
2 Compound, 
1 No letter. 
f eb ed ef eg ek el em en ep er es 
\ et ev ez et}f eth efli ezh ing. 
c, which has the power of ck, or ef ; 
q, that of eh before n. 
j, which (lands for edzh; 
x, for As or gz. 
k, merely a mark of afpiration. 
Confonants divided into Mutes and Semivowels. 
6 Mutes, eb ed eg ek ep et. 
3 Pure Mutes, ek ep et. 
3 Impure, eb ed eg, 
13 Semivowels,\e f el em en er efs ev ez etpp eth 
or Liquids. J efh ezh ing. 
9 Vocal, el em en er ev ez eth ezh ing. 
4 AJ'pirated, ef efs etpp efh. 
Divided 
