1810:] © On the Plan for recording Alphabetical Sounds. y 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, 
Vox—et preterea nihil. 
S I live at some distance from Lon- 
don, I have but just now received 
your Magazine of the current month :* 
and I lose no time in replying to some 
observations with which one of your cor- 
respondents has honoured a letter of mine 
inserted in your publication — several 
months ago,t and consisting of strictures 
on an article that had appeared in the 
preceding Number, reviving the very 
old idea of employing our orthographical 
expression of the sounds uttered by the 
inferior animals, or produced in certain 
cases by inanimate,objects, as a standard 
to record the existing pronunciation of 
the letters of the alphabet. I do not ex- 
actly understand in what sense your cor- 
respondent applies the epithet “dashing” 
to my former communication: my opi- 
nion on the subject of it remains unal- 
tered; butasI think your correspondent’s 
letter was perhaps intended to produce 
from me another dash, I regret that this 
can be but a slight one; for I really write 
in very great haste, to endeavour to be 
in time for your printer ; and with mate- 
rials by no means adequate to a topic 
which, by the acknowledgment of your 
correspondent, can only be sufficiently 
illustrated from an acquaintance with the 
languages of ‘ ali the nations whose his- 
tory has come to gur knowledge, the po- 
lished as well as the unpolished ;” and 
for the discussion of which he accordingly, 
though quoting French, Latin, and Greek, 
professes himself incompetent. W hat 
little occurs to my recollection at this 
moment, I take the liberty of troubling 
you with; from a conviction that a pro- 
ject so daring and useful in.its design, 
yet so unambitious and practical in its 
means, ought not to be lightly abandoned. 
I cannot help saying, however, Mr. 
Editor, that I think myself rather hardly 
treated in this business; and that more 
than my fair proportion of the labour ne- 
cessary for establishing the proposed 
plan, is thrown upon me. Your first 
correspondent produced only ¢#wo sounds, 
those of the sheep and the cuckoo: I con- 
firmed both these by additional testimony, 
and besides brought forward the follow- 
ing thirty-two new examples, all (except 
half a dozen) accompanied by written 
and indisputable authorities: the cock, 
pr 
* The Number published on the first of 
January. 
+ july 1, 1808: page 506, 
Monturty Mac. No, 196, 
the dog, the cat (male and female), the 
kitten, the horse, the war-horse, the cow, 
the sucking-pig, the canary-bird, the 
duck, the hen, the owl, the jack-daw, the 
crow, the nightingale, two. other birds, 
the frog, church-bells, the. noise of a 
watch or clock, the strings of a violin out 
of tune, éwo general musical sounds, a 
postilion’s whip, a drum, a hunting-horn, 
and five others. Your last month’s cor- 
respondent has, strictly speaking, added 
not one to the list.* Now, Sir, if [ 
strengthen a few of my former instances 
by further authority, and supply nine or 
ten fresh ones, I hope | shall be consis 
dered as having done my part toward the 
matter in hand; and that your other two 
correspondents will put the finishing- 
strokes to their great undertaking, and 
produce et 
- A work outlasting monumental brass.*” 
‘Tshall begin, of course, with confirms 
ing my old examples; and as your last 
correspondent seems fond of. quotations 
from the learned languages, I shall gratify 
him in that respect. 
The cry of the sheep your first correspon. 
dent gave as baa from Theocritus, and I 
confirmed it from one of O’Keefe’s farces. 
_I have since observed this expression of 
it adopted by some very high authorities, 
which your correspondents will see at the 
bottom of the page;f as well as by 
Soh ns Shakespeare, 
* Such words as sore, hiss, clang, and crashy 
are not at all in point. The writer of the . 
letter may find many more of that kind cited . 
from Wallis (and without approbation, as 
applied in a somewhat similar view) in John- 
son’s gramimar prefixed to his dictionary, The 
French words quoted are still further from 
the purpose: our own whistle, chatter, croak, 
bark, bowl, and bleat, would be quite as ap- ~ 
propriate, or rather unappropriate. As tothe 
Latin quotation, he might find a hundred 
better in the same author: what, for instance, 
does he'think of ¢¢ clamorque virim, clangore 
que tubarum ?” But all these have absolutely 
nothing to do with the matter in hand. The 
Greek, and its translation, are, if possible, 
more and more removed from the question 3 
and it is not easy to imagine by what connec. 
tion of ideas they could ever have been ine 
troduced into it, 
+ Eustathius, who lived towards the close 
‘of the twelfth century, says that 67 @i is a 
sound made in imitation of the bleating of 
a sheep (i 8Xe piunow mpoBarwv paviic), and 
quotes to this purpose this verse of an ancieat 
writer called Cratinus: 
°O F aribsog Gomep wpoBhrov, Bn, Bn, Agyuv 
Badier. 
He, like silly sheep, goes crying daa. 
é« Caninigs has remarked the same, Hellen, 
Pp: 26, 
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