SUBANU PHONETICS AND COMPOSITION MEMBERS. 63 
these positions are limiting, two and two and one are intermediate. It 
is in regard of these intermediate positions that we estimate the devel- 
opment of languages as a matter of evolutionary history and that we 
evaluate their orthoepic richness as determining their flexibility and 
beauty of efficiency as a means of communicating thought. 
We have already spoken of the palate as a blunt organ. It is so 
seen to be on anatomic examination. Its movements and practical 
positions relative to the column of vibrant air are few. It is just such 
a coarse speech-organ as would serve the uses of a peopie to whom nice- 
ties of pronunciation remain yet needless. The tongue we see to be far 
other. In its speech use it has two forms of activity which operate 
singly or in conjunction: by changes in the form of its thicker bodyit is 
able to alter the shape of the central cavity of the mouth; by the pre- 
cision with which its flexible tip may be applied to one point or other 
of the containing walls it may produce almost an infinitude of consonant 
modulants; at one extremity of its applicability it may compose with 
certain palatal positions to produce linguo-palatal sounds; at the other 
extremity it may compose with the inner aspect of the lips to produce 
linguo-labial sounds and in the same region with the teeth and gums 
to produce yet other sounds. In the arts the finer tools of precision 
are useless in prentice hands; training and skill are required before 
they can be economically employed. So with men to whom speech is 
yet an early and imperfect acquisition we should expect to find, we do 
in fact find, that the prodigious flexibility of the tongue is used in its 
least degree. 
The lips again are extremely mobile organs. These “‘leaves of the 
mouth,’ as the Polynesian people denominate them, are capable of a 
great variety of closure which may impose upon the issuing vibrations 
of sound the last determining modification. The essential character 
of the tongue is its great flexibility; the essential character of the lips 
is their applicability to great refinements of precision. ‘The positioning 
of the lips plays a part so large in our own speech that it has been found 
possible to teach the deaf to see speech by reading the lips. It would 
be interesting to learn to what extent lip-reading might apply to the 
case of the ruder folk who have not yet acquired distinct control of these 
organs. In a computation of the frequency of sounds in English and 
in Samoan I have shown that in speech involving 1,000 occurrences of 
the most frequent vowel sound the English employs the labials 908 
times, the Samoan but 378. ‘The labials are the last possession to be 
added to man’s speech equipment, just as the lips are the last to come 
under control of their fine musculature. We employ but one of the 
possible intermediate closures of the lips in its dual phase of v sonant 
and f surd; some other languages make better use of the paired organs; 
many languages there are which have either not attained at all to any 
but the limiting lip closures or, if they have found the possibility of 
