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Show ON THE ALPHABET. 9 tional organ, the teeth. In English we have no palatal spirants, but they are found in many languages. The German, for example, has two: one in words like ich and milch, formed farther forward on the tongue; the other, in achy doch, etc, farther back- more gutturally. They are both surd, and the corresponding sonant is nearly the Arabic " ghain" As we have no other use for q and x, these characters may be used in representing them. If a surd palatal spirant is found, let it be represented by q, and if a sonant is found, by x. The spirants, then, are- / v c i q q fife, valve, thin, then, ich and achy x = Arab, ghain SIBILANTS. We come now to the class of " sibilants," or hissing sounds. Our common English s and z need no explanation; they, too, are corresponding surd and sonant. But our * A- sound is just as much a simple sound as s, although we use two letters to write it; and it, as a surd, has its corresponding sonant in azure and pleasure, in fusion and adhesion, and their like. As we have no other use for c and j let the first, the surd, be represented by c, and its corresponding sonant by j . The ch and j sounds in church and judge are compound, having for their last part the sh and zh sounds, with a t prefixed to the one and a d to the other; the t and d, however, formed in a somewhat different way from our usual ones- namely, farther back in the mouth, and with the flat of the tongue. These, compound sounds should be written by tc and dj. Thus, the sibilants are- 8 Z 0 j tO dj sauce. zones. shrewish. azure. church. judge. W, Y, B, L, AND H. The sounds of our y and w, as in you and we, should be written with these letters. The same with an A- sound prefixed to them- as in when (= hweri) and hue (= hyu)- should be written as pronounced: that is, hw and hy. Some hold, to be sure, that these sounds are not w and y with an h prefixed, but rather are the corresponding surds to w and y; in either case, however, the hw and hy signs are the best, and unobjectionable. |
