60 THE SUBANU. 
shut off, it is objectionable to our educated ears simply for the reason 
that we miss the supporting tones which have their origin in the upper 
air-passage. | 
The nasal consonants are really formed by dropping the veil of the 
palate and thereby opening to the passage of sound vibrations the nasal 
cavity with its twin exits. While the passage of the sound is thus 
diverted in a high degree (for we must not lose sight of the fact that this 
diversion is always present in a minor degree), the distinctive character 
of the sound is formed by the adjustment of the three consonant- 
producing organs to their peculiar positions of control. Here, also, 
digital examination will readily disclose the positions within the mouth- 
cavity out of which arise these three consonants, and the attention 
directed to the perception of the vibration of the air-column will soon 
discover the course of the vibrations through the upper cavity. 
The possession and employment of the three nasals vary widely in 
the languages of men. The labial nasal m appears to be everywhere 
present in speech. This universality is not difficult to comprehend. 
While the consonants producible by the lips may require such precision 
in positioning the organs and such a fine sense of synchronization with 
the outward impulse of the air as to lie wholly outside the possibilities 
of many, if not most, of the more primitive languages, the m position is 
the simplest exercise of speech mechanism. Assuming the dropping of 
the veil of the palate and the quiescence of the two rearward speech- 
organs when the sound vibrations are about to issue, the result depends 
upon the position of the upper and nether lip relative to themselves 
and therefore to the sound-pipe. So long as the lips are not in contact 
with one another, the sound which issues is vocalic, and this holds 
equally true whether the lips are wide apart (as in the vociferous shout) 
or closely approximated (as in the production of the French vowel u). 
But if the lips come together in any one individual for but the briefest 
touch, we find that we have passed from vowel to consonant, the m is 
produced. 
There is abundant reason to regard this consonant as the earliest 
acquisition of man and the foundation of human speech as consciously 
differentiated from the animal cry wholly vocalic. It is so light a 
difference that we incline to delude ourselves that some at least of 
the animals possess this or the lingual or the palatal nasals. This is 
evidenced by our onomatopoetic names for common animal cries, the 
bovine “‘moo,”’ the ‘“‘neigh”’ of the horse, the ‘“‘cock-a-doodle-doo”’ of the 
barnyard fowl, even one slight step further in consonant development 
in the Cockney cry of the burro “‘hee-haw.”’ A careful ear will soon dis- 
cover that none of these animals shares our consonant possibilities; the 
effect is an error of interpretation in the human ear; what is really heard 
when these familiar animals vocalize is the appulse, the abrupt incep- 
tion of the sound. This confusion all the more readily arises since the 
