SUBANU PHONETICS AND COMPOSITION MEMBERS. 57 
possible to trace the family resemblance of a language and from the 
resemblance to recognize its affiliation. We shall now advance to the 
interpretation of this picture of the Subanu. 
The vowel uncertainty will recur in the last chapter, where we shall 
have occasion to discuss its critical value in the solution of the major 
problem which we develop in these studies. 
The outline of the consonant supply upon this diagram surely has 
a deep linguistic signification—one, we feel confident, not beyond our 
powers of interpreting. A lineal presentation of the consonant element 
of the foregoing tabulation would consist of a square lacking its east 
side. ‘The upper and the lower bounding lines would be indicated by 
heavier lines as showing that along those lines there is a double supply 
of material; the west boundary would be lighter, yet 
distinct and almost complete. Within the area of the ern 
square would be set a dot to represent that a single 
effort has been made to fill up the vacancy. Before 
we dismiss the Subanu we shall find that the simplicity 
of such a graphic method as this will facilitate the 
comparison with other languages and speech families 
which exhibit diagrams of different construction. 
These forms are not without meaning in the history of speech 
development; they call for study along that line of examination. 
It will be granted that the use of the vowel possibility is a common 
possession of the higher orders of animal life; for convenience we may 
regard it as colimital with vertebrate life. By vowel possibility we 
designate such arrangement of an air-sack and resonating chamber as 
will admit of the formation of sounds which may be noise when pro- 
duced without sentient direction and which may become musical tones 
when formed by more or less purposeful attention to the method of pro- 
duction. ‘The vowels, open-throated sounds, are the product of vibra- 
tion within an unstopped column of air. They vary according as one 
position or another within the air-column is selected as the point of pro- 
duction; they vary in quality according as these soft-walled resonating 
columns differ in texture. But the vowel possibility man has because 
he has the acoustic equipment of the air-breathing vertebrate. That 
he has it in higher degree and under more perfect control of modulation 
we may ascribe to epochal development of the possibility through exer- 
cise in purposeful employment, the epochs being marked along the 
biologic side, of which the possibilities may readily be seen to be limit- 
less, by evolution into new species and genera. 
Whereas the vowel is of the type of vibration in an open air-pipe, 
the consonant is dependent wholly upon the employment of stops and 
closures in the pipe which contains the vibrant column of air, and in 
certain of its features it depends upon the added fact that the vibrant 
air is likewise in motion of progression outward and therefore exerts a 
