PHONOLOGY AND SEMATOLOGY.
“Sind doch die Lautgebilde der Vorhang, hinter welchem das
Geheimniss der Begriffe steckt, das vom Sprachforscher
Aufdeckung erwartet.”—POTT.
The skeleton of language is formed by those phonetic utterances into
which significancy must be breathed before they can become living
speech. They are the outward vestment of the thought that lies within,
the material in which the mind of man finds its expression. Thought, it
is true, may be conveyed through gesture and picture-writing as well
as through phonetic utterance, but in phonetic utterance alone does it
find a vehicle sufficient and worthy of itself. Like the marble in the
hands of the sculptor, however, sound not only embodies meaning; it also
limits and defines the expression of that meaning, and confines it within
barriers which it may not pass. The language of man is conditioned by his
physical structure and organization.
What anatomy is to physiology, that phonology is to the science of
language. Comparative philology is based upon phonetic laws; the relation
of words, of forms, of dialects, and of languages is determined by the
laws which govern their outward shape. Languages are grouped together
because they have a common stock of roots and a common grammar; and the
identity of roots and of grammar is on the outward side an identity of
phonetic sound. The laws of scientific philology are for the most part
the laws which regulate the change of sounds, and these are dependent
on the physiological structure of the organs of speech. The priority of
sounds, of words, and even of dialects, is frequently to be discovered by
an appeal to the formation of the throat and lips. We may lay down the
general rule that the harder sound passes into the easier, rather than
the easier into the harder; but it lies with phonology and physiology
to determine which is really the harder sound. It is phonology which
has created the modern science of language, and phonology may therefore
be forgiven if it has claimed more than rightfully belongs to it or
forgotten that it is but one side and one branch of the master science
itself.
The empirical laws of the interchange and equivalence of sounds in
a special group of tongues are ascertained by comparative philology;
the explanation of these laws, the assignment of their causes, the
determination of the order followed by phonetic development or decay,
belong to the province of phonology. Phonology touches on the one hand
upon physics in so far as it is concerned with the analysis of the
sounds of speech, and on the other upon physiology in so far as it
studies the nature and operations of the vocal organs themselves. It
is, in fact, as much a branch of physiology as it is of the science of
language, dealing as it does with a special department of physiology;
but it passes beyond the province of physiology when it investigates
the nature of the sounds produced by the activity of those organs
with which alone physiology is concerned. But whether it touches upon
physiology or upon physics, phonology is equally one of the physical
sciences, pursuing the same method and busied with the same material.
So long as philological research is purely phonological, so long have
we to do with a physical science; it is only when we turn to the other
problems of glottology, only when we pass from the outward vesture of
speech to the meaning which it clothes, that the science of language
becomes a historical one. The inner meaning of speech is the reflection
of the human mind, and the development of the human mind must be studied
historically. Those, therefore, who refuse to regard glottology as
other than a physical science, take as it were but a half-view of it;
they are forced to confine themselves to its outward texture, to be
content with a mere description of the different families of speech
and their characteristics, like the botanist or the zoologist, and to
leave untouched the many questions and problems which a broader view
of the science would present to them. It is true that even upon the
broader view, the method of the science is as much that of the physical
sciences as the method of geology; it is also true that the doctrine of
evolution has introduced what may be termed the historical treatment
even into botany and zoology; but nevertheless linguistic science as
a whole must be included among the historical ones, unless we are to
narrow its province unduly and identify it with the subordinate science
of phonology. The physical science will give us the skeleton of speech,
the dry bones of the anatomist’s dissecting-room; for life and thought we
must turn to history.
We must not forget, however, that we can understand the past only by the
help of the present. An antiquarian study of philology will enable us to
trace the history of words and forms, to group languages into families,
and to discover the empirical laws of phonetic change; to interpret and
verify these laws, to correct our classifications and conclusions, to
learn what sounds really are, we must examine the living idioms of the
modern world. The method of science is to work back from the known to
the unknown, and if we are to study glottology to any purpose and to
extend and confirm its generalizations, it must be by first observing and
experimenting on actual speech. We must begin by disabusing our minds
of the belief that words consist of letters and not of sounds; on the
contrary, letters are at best but guides to the sounds they represent,
and only the experienced student of actual sounds is in a position
to determine their real value. Phonology stands at the threshold of
linguistic science, and those alone who have honestly wooed and won her
can enter into the shrine within. The physical science leads upward to
the historical science; the key to the past is to be found in the present.
Now the first question we have to ask is, What is a sound? The most
general answer we can give to this question is that a sound is the
impression made upon the organs of hearing by the rapid swinging of
an elastic body in an elastic medium, which is usually the air. The
vibrations set on foot by this rapid swinging reach the ear under the
form of waves, and these may succeed each other at either irregular or
regular intervals. In the first case we have what is called a noise—a
source of constant delight to the savage and the infant, but exceedingly
painful to the sensitive ear. In the second case musical tones are
produced, among which must be counted the utterances of articulate
speech. Tones, or rather full tones (as opposed to partial ones), are
distinguished from each other by their (1) strength or loudness, their
(2) height or pitch, and their (3) quality or _timbre_. The strength
depends upon the amplitude of the vibrations produced in the elastic
medium, the pitch on the number of the vibrations in any given space of
time, or, what amounts to the same thing, on the length of time occupied
by each vibration, and the _timbre_ (also called “tone”) on the form
assumed by the vibrations or waves of sound, that is to say, on the
relations of the vibrations one to the other.
There are but few musical instruments that produce a simple tone; in
fact, among those usually employed the tuning-fork is almost the only
one from which we can hear it. All other musical tones result from a
combination of simple, or as they have sometimes been termed, “partial”
tones, whose double vibrations or “swing-swangs,” as De Morgan named
them, stand to one another in the relation of 1, 2, 3, 4, &c. The
Pythagoreans of the fourth century B.C. were already acquainted with
the fact that the respective lengths of the fundamental note with its
octave, fifth and fourth, must be as one to two, as two to three, and as
three to four.[136] This fundamental note, or deepest partial tone, is
the starting-point from which we ascend upwards; it forms the standard
by which the pitch or ascending scale of sounds is measured, while the
remaining partial tones go by the name of the harmonics or upper tones.
The partial tones coalesce so closely into a full tone as almost to
escape the notice even of the trained ear, but their co-existence may be
easily detected by the help of resonatory instruments. The full tones
themselves, however, which we shall henceforth call tones or notes,[137]
may not be able to make the impression upon the nerves of hearing needful
for conveying a sense of sound to the brain within. The tone produced by
any number of vibrations less than sixteen a second is wholly inaudible
except by the help of the microphone, and even this number of vibrations
brings out so deep a pitch as to be scarcely perceptible.[138] “For
practical purposes,” says Professor Max Müller,[139] “the lowest tone we
hear is produced by thirty double vibrations in one second, the highest
by 4,000. Between these two lie the usual seven octaves of our musical
instruments. It is said to be possible, however, to produce perceptible
musical tones through eleven octaves, beginning with sixteen and ending
with 38,000 double vibrations in one second, though here the lower
notes are mere hums, the upper notes mere clinks.” The sense of sound
is not stronger and more trustworthy than the other senses of sight,
of touch, of taste, of smell. On all sides we are strictly limited by
the conditions which surround us, and even science, though she may
assist the senses by instruments which enlarge and extend their powers,
reaches at last a boundary which she cannot pass. The world is a vast
sounding-board, even if we know it not; the infinitesimally small and
the infinitesimally great alike lie beyond our apprehension. Above and
below there is infinity, and “the music of the spheres,” of which the old
Greek thinkers dreamed, is not, after all, so very far removed from the
truth that science has revealed to us. The notes or partial tones that we
hear are the purely mechanical product of a definitely determined number
of double vibrations, and the variations in pitch we notice between
them are due to the length of time occupied by these vibrations. If,
for instance, one note takes half the time another does, if the number
of oscillations in the second is twice that required by the fundamental
note, the interval between the two notes is what is called an octave. If,
again, the proportion between the two notes is as three to two, three
waves of the one occupying the same time as two waves of the other, the
interval between them is a fifth; while a major sixth represents the
interval between two notes, which stand to each other as five to three.
Consequently, if we divide into two equal parts a tense cord, which, when
made to vibrate throughout its whole length, yields its fundamental note,
and vibrate either part, we shall hear the octave above that fundamental
note. In other words, the number of the vibrations of any two cords
having the same degree of tension is (other things being equal) inversely
as their length. In the case of two elastic rods or rigid tongues, the
number of vibrations is inversely as the square of the length; hence an
elastic rod six inches long will vibrate four times more rapidly than
a rod of the same material and equal thickness twelve inches long. The
number of vibrations is also dependent on the thickness and tension of
the cords or rods, being inversely as the thickness of the cords and
directly as the thickness of the rods, and in both cases proportional to
the square root of their tension. It must be remembered that membranous
tongues like our own _chordæ vocales_, act in accordance with the same
general law as tense cords and not as elastic rods.
Every body capable of producing sound has a tone peculiar to itself;
a stringed instrument, for instance, and a trombone differ in the
tones they give forth, and we may even divide the air into definitely
circumscribed portions, or “chambers of resonance,” each of which will
have its own peculiar tone. The form assumed by the double vibrations,
the ultimate causes of sound, determines these differences in the quality
of the tones we hear. Sometimes the vibrations will run in zigzag course
through the elastic medium; sometimes their shape will be rounded;
sometimes, again, it will be angular. The simplest wave of sound, that
produced by a tuning-fork, flows in a succession of spiral lines, and
the partial tones or harmonics of other instruments may also be assumed
to be so many simple waves of sound of the same form. In fact, even if a
harmonic may be resolved into a combination of other harmonics or partial
tones, and these again into yet simpler and fainter harmonics, we must
come at last to simple notes, corresponding with the note emitted by the
tuning-fork and composed of vibrations that have the same spiral shape.
It is the varying amalgamation of these simple spirals that occasions the
varying forms of the full tones; each full tone (the simple tone alone
excepted) being made up of harmonics and consequently of their spirals
in different proportions, and in this difference of mixture lies the
difference of quality in the tones we hear.
Ohm, Fourier, and others first proved that the simple pendulous
oscillation is the only vibration unaccompanied by harmonics, and that
all full tones can be decomposed into the simple vibrations of which they
consist. Helmholtz has now ascertained the exact form of many of these
compound tones, as well as the conditions under which the by-notes or
harmonics are present or absent. In the violin, for example, as compared
with the guitar or the pianoforte, he finds that the primary note is
strong, the partial tones from two to six weak, and those from seven
to ten clearer and more distinct.[140] He was first led to detect the
variations of form they assume by applying a microscope to the vibrations
of different musical instruments, and the fact was further confirmed by
the discovery made by himself and Donders that the sounds articulated by
the human voice are composed of vibrations which each assume their own
special shape. The phonautographs since constructed by Scott and König
actually delineate the forms of these waves of sound either on a plate
of sand, or in the flickerings of a gas-flame, or in the movements of
a writing pencil, and the microscopic examination of the impressions
produced by articulate sounds in the tinfoil of the phonograph shows a
series of indentations of various but determinate shapes.
The number of forms which can be assumed by the waves of sound is
naturally limited in kind, while various bodies may emit sounds
containing the same harmonic or partial tone. The quality or timbre which
depends on the relation and strength of these partial tones, and of the
composite form assumed by the sum of their vibrations, constitutes what
we have called a peculiar tone. This, as we have seen, is a simple one
in the case of the tuning-fork, but in other cases it forms part of a
full or complex group. We may find an illustration in the characteristic
lines of light which we learn from the spectrum analysis are projected
by substances; where we are dealing with a simple elementary substance,
the line thrown upon the spectrum is correspondingly simple; where, on
the other hand, the substance is compound, its spectrum also is compound,
reflecting the several chemical elements of which it is made up. The
simple spectrum answers to the simple harmonic or partial tone with its
varying pitch and invariable form, just as the compound spectrum answers
to the full note or peculiar tone with its characteristic quality and
diversified grouping of partial tones. Now, if a body which has a certain
peculiar tone is struck by a sound which contains a partial tone in
any way similar to this peculiar tone, the body in question vibrates
in sympathy, and we hear what is known as a by-note or harmonic. This
by-note reacts upon the partial tone which has caused it, strengthening
the partial tone and so modifying the quality of the complex sound. If,
for instance, we play a note such as C on a violin, the strings of a
piano representing C as well as the harmonics allied to it will vibrate
in sympathy. Of course the more elastic the body which is struck, the
louder and clearer will be the by-note, and of all elastic bodies none
are better than those chambers of resonance into which we can divide the
air. Such chambers of resonance are afforded by wind instruments of all
kinds, whose shape determines the peculiar tone they are to emit. If the
instrument is so constructed as to change its shape at will, now round,
now straight, now broad, now narrow, the number of different chambers of
resonance, and consequently the number of different peculiar tones, may
be almost indefinitely increased.
It is this variability of form which makes the human throat such a
marvellous instrument for the production of manifold sounds. Like most
chambers of resonance, it has the hollow reed-like shape which connects
it most readily with the primary source of sound. In analyzing the
material of language we must never forget that we have to do with the
most perfect wind instrument that exists, a wind instrument, too, of
infinite pliability and power of change, and thus in constant and ready
sympathy with the harmonics that are struck by the other organs of speech.
We must now pass from the science of acoustics to the science of
physiology. We have seen what are the conditions under which musical
notes are produced, we have also seen that among these musical notes
the utterances of articulate speech have to be classed; we have next to
examine into the nature and conformation of the physical organs to which
these utterances owe their origin. In the first place, the organs of
speech may roughly be divided into three groups:—the breathing apparatus,
or lungs, the _trachea_ or windpipe with larynx and bronchial tubes,
and the chamber of resonance or mouth and nose. The lungs provide the
material which is worked up into inarticulate noises and articulate
sounds by the _trachea_ and chamber of resonance. As long as the breath
flows out of the throat and mouth quietly and without interruption
language of any sort is out of the question. The organs of speech are
at rest, and all that can be done is to propel the breath with greater
or less violence. We may breathe hard through the mouth, we may even
make noises like that of snorting through the nose, but as yet there is
nothing which can constitute a starting-point for articulate speech.[141]
Mere _breath_, as distinguished from _voice_, only supplies the material
out of which words and sentences may afterwards be created. Voice is
breath, acted upon and excited into waves of sound by the organs of the
throat and mouth; a larger quantity of air than is needed for simple
breathing is rapidly taken into the lungs, and immediately expelled in
intermittent gusts, but with varying degrees of force. Almost all the
sounds we utter are accompanied by exspiration; only such sounds as an
occasionally mispronounced _ja_ in Germany or our own surprised _Oh!_ are
produced while the breath is being drawn in. Experiment will at once show
how difficult it is to pronounce a sound at the same time that this is
being done.
The breath, then, is the passive instrument through which language is
formed by the trachea and chamber of resonance. This trachea is a long
cartilaginous and elastic pipe ending in the bronchial tubes, through
which the air is admitted to the lungs. Its upper part is termed the
larynx, consisting of five cartilages and situated in the throat. The
lowest of these cartilages is the _cricoid_, which resembles a ring
with the broad flat surface turned downwards. Over this comes the
_cartilago thyroidea_ or Adam’s apple, with two wings which partly
enclose the _cartilago cricoidea_, and form a link between it and the
_os hyoideum_,[142] or bone of the tongue, which has somewhat of the
shape of a horseshoe. The space surrounded by these two cartilages may be
compared with a hollow reed, out of the back part of which a piece has
been cut. From the base of the latter and the upper rim of the _cartilago
cricoidea_ spring two small pyramidal cartilages, the arytenoids,
which resemble the horns of an ox and almost touch one another. Their
roots are connected with one another and with the cricoid and thyroid
cartilages by the so-called _processus vocales_, which in spite of their
name have little to do with the formation of speech. The horns of the
arytenoids serve to unite two elastic bands to the opposite surface of
the thyroid cartilage. These bands are formed of muscle enveloped with
mucous membrane, and are the famous _chordæ vocales_ upon which as upon
the strings of a piano the manifold modulations of human language are
played. So long as they remain, the other vocal organs, not excluding
the tongue, may be removed without depriving the patient of the faculty
of articulate speech.[143] Their length differs in men and women, in
children and adults; the average length in men being about one-third
greater than in women, and occasioning the different pitch of male and
female voices.[144] The two _chordæ vocales_ run obliquely across the
cavity enclosed between the thyroid cartilage and a small projection
on the front part of the arytenoid cartilage, an aperture which is
called the glottis, or _glottis vera_. They can be relaxed or contracted
at will by the muscles of the cartilages to which they are attached,
and a portion of them can even be deadened by pressure from a small
protuberance on the under side of the epiglottis. The glottis itself is
divided into two parts, one the space between the vocal chords and the
lateral thyro-arytenoid and crico-arytenoid cartilages, the other the
triangular space between the vocal chords themselves, the latter allowing
a passage for breath, the former a passage for voice. Both spaces can
of course be narrowed or enlarged by the contraction or relaxation of
the vocal chords, and the junction of the latter will close one or both
altogether. It is in this secret chamber that the phonetic substance of
speech is moulded into shape; the vibrations of the _chordæ vocales_ in
the breath of the glottis are the ultimate cause of syllables and words.
Above this chamber of the voice the trachea or windpipe again widens, and
a second chamber is formed by two cavities on either side, called the
ventricles of the larynx (the _ventriculi Morgagni_). Each cavity leads,
at the back, into a pouch of the mucous membrane called the laryngeal
sac and covered with sixty or seventy mucous glands, the secretion from
which acts like oil on a piece of machinery by keeping the vocal chords
and the surrounding parts in a moist condition. Stretched across the
cavities are two thick ligaments, the false vocal chords, like the true
_chordæ vocales_ below them. They differ from the vocal chords in having
no muscle of their own, but like the latter can contract or enlarge at
pleasure the false glottis (_glottis spuria_), the space, that is, which
is enclosed between them. The false glottis, which, like the false vocal
chords, takes no part in the creation of language, is shut by an elastic
cartilage, called the _epiglottis_, the lower point of which is attached
to the thyroid cartilage immediately above the _chordæ vocales_, while
the upper end broadens out like a leaf and falls over the fissure of
the false glottis. This corresponds with the entrance of the larynx.
The upper surface of the epiglottis is concave, and in swallowing it is
allowed to drop upon the larynx. At other times it may be depressed over
the false and true vocal chords.
Such is the machinery whereby breath from the lungs is transformed into
voice in its passage through the windpipe; and voice is next taken up
by what we have termed the chamber of resonance and modified in various
ways. If we may call the glottis the manufactory of voice, we may call
the mouth and nose the manufactory of the articulate sounds into which
voice is divided. At the back of the epiglottis lies the _pharynx_,
leading into the _œsophagus_, and the pharynx is bounded on the side of
the mouth by the posterior pillar or _arcus pharyngo-palatinus_, opposite
to which is the anterior pillar or _arcus glosso-palatinus_. Between them
are the tonsils, and above these again the _uvula_, a sort of pendent
valve which hangs downwards from the top of the anterior pillar towards
the posterior pillar behind. The uvula is attached to a piece of yielding
muscle known as the soft palate or _velum palati_, which with the uvula
separates the throat from the entrance to the nostrils. The soft palate
can move either backwards or forwards; in pronouncing the guttural (_ng_)
for instance, it is pressed forward against the tongue, shutting off
the throat; in pronouncing the vowels, on the other hand, it is pressed
backward, and so cuts off the flow of breath to the nose. Above the
soft palate comes the arch of the hard palate or roof of the mouth, and
below this the tongue with its two roots and pointed tip. The teeth that
enclose the mouth, along with their alveolars that form the front wall of
the hard palate, have much to do with the formation of specific sounds,
while it is hardly necessary to refer to the phonological importance
of both nose and lips. As is well known, a leading characteristic of
cultivated English is the little use it makes of the latter.
It is now time to consider the precise parts played by these different
organs of speech, in producing the various elements of spoken language.
We must begin by putting out of sight all inarticulate sounds or noises,
such as the clicks of the Bushman or the Hottentot, which have entered
into the composition and framework of actual speech. Such inarticulate
sounds are but the stepping-stones to real language, the first steps
of the ladder, as it were, which were eventually to lead to articulate
words. They are the natural cries of man like the natural cries of the
animals from which they in no way differ; and just as on the one side the
barking of the dog and the mewing of the cat are said to be attempts to
imitate the human voice, so on the other hand the inarticulate cries of
the _infant_ or “non-speaker” are on the same level as the roar of the
lion or the shriek of the cockatoo. We are told that the cynocephalic ape
of the Upper Senegal, whose form is depicted on the monuments of ancient
Egypt, utters clicks which sometimes contain a distinct _d_,[145] and
the Bushmen themselves show a true instinct when they make the beasts
in their fables talk not only with the clicks of the Bushman dialects,
but even in the case of some animals with clicks that do not otherwise
occur.[146] If we watch the first endeavours of children to speak, we
may discover inarticulate noises gradually becoming articulate sounds
with definite meanings, and we may even trace a recollection of the first
efforts of man to create a language for himself in the guttural aspirates
heard for instance in some of the Semitic dialects. Indeed, the name
given to the hard breathing (_h_) by the Greeks, πνεῦμα δασύ or “rough
aspirate,” reminds us of the guttural noises, not yet phonetic sounds,
made by the child; in forming this sound we jerk out the breath at the
same time that we narrow the glottis, adding if we like various degrees
of hoarseness by further stopping its free flow. The glottal catch,
which is heard in Danish after vowels, and according to Mr. Bell is
substituted in the Glasgow pronunciation for “voiceless stops,” is really
a mere cough. Even the _spiritus lenis_ or soft breathing, heard before
a vowel, partakes in some measure of the nature of a noise. It is true
that the rough breathing cannot be sung while the soft breathing may be;
but this is because in the case of the latter the breath is checked near
the vocal chords and can therefore be intoned. Professor Max Müller is
doubtless right in holding that all that the Greeks meant by πνεῦμα ψιλόν
as opposed to πνεῦμα δασύ was “a negative definition of another breath
which is free from roughness,”[147] just as the ĕ-´psilon is negatively
contrasted with the _êta_. Neither breathing was regarded as constituting
as yet a true sound or “voice.”
The true sounds of language, however, were distinguished but roughly
and imperfectly one from the other. Plato, in his Kratylus, divides
them into φονηέντα or “vowels,” and ἄφωνα or “mutes,” these last being
further subdivided into semi-vowels which are neither vowels nor mutes
(φωνηέντα μὲν οὔ, οὐ μέντοι γε ἄφθογγα) and ἄφθογγα or real mutes. The
term ἄφωνα, mutes, afterwards came to be restricted in its sense as a
simple equivalent of Plato’s ἄφθογγα, its place being taken by the term
σύμφωνα or “consonants,” letters, that is to say, which must be sounded
along with a vowel. These consonants were next classed as ἡμίφωνα or
semi-vowels (_l_, _m_, _n_, _r_, and _s_), ὑγρά or “liquids” which
covered all the semi-vowels with the exception of _s_, and ἄφωνα or
“mutes.” The mutes fall into three classes, the ψιλά or “bare” (_k_, _t_,
_p_), the δασέα or “aspirates” (_kh_, _th_, _ph_) and the μέσα which
stood, as it were, “between” them. The Latin translation of the latter
term has given us the _mediæ_ of modern grammars.
Far more thorough-going and scientific were the phonological labours
and classification of the Hindu _prâtiśâkhyas_. Instead of starting
from written speech like the Greek grammarians, they had to do with an
orally-delivered literature, and hence while the Greeks never got beyond
the belief that the tongue, teeth, and lips were the sole instruments of
pronunciation, the Hindus had carefully analyzed the organs of speech
some centuries before the Christian era, and composed phonological
treatises which may favourably compare with those of our own day. They
knew, for example, that in sounding the _tenues_, or hard letters, the
glottis is kept open, while in sounding the _mediæ_, or soft ones, it
is closed; they knew also that _e_ and _o_ were diphthongs analyzable
into _a_ + _i_ and _a_ + _u_; and they explained _k_ and _g_, _p_ and
_b_, as formed by complete contact of the vocal organs. They had noted
the _repha_ or “Newcastle burr,” and had divided the nasals into their
several classes. The names they gave to the various sounds, and the
groups into which they were classified, were descriptive of their mode
of formation, like the names similarly applied by modern phonologists.
Thus the guttural sibilant formed near the root of the tongue (χ) was
called _Jihvâmûlîya_, “the tongue-root letter,” and the labial sibilant
(φ) _Upadhmânîya_, “to be breathed upon.” The consonants were classed
both according to the place where they were formed, and according to
their _prayatna_, or “quality,” the mutes and nasals, for instance, being
formed by “complete contact” of the vocal organs, the semi-vowels by
“_slight_ contact” (_îshat sprishṭa_), the sibilants by “slight opening”
(_îshad vivṛita_), and the vowels by complete opening. A controversy
even sprung up among the grammarians as to the extent of this opening of
the organs. “Some ascribe to the semi-vowels _duḥspṛishṭa_, imperfect
contact, or _îshadaspṛishṭa_, slight non-contact, or _îshadvivṛita_,
slight opening; to the sibilants _nemaspṛishṭa_, half-contact; _i.e._,
greater opening than is required for the semi-vowels, or _vivṛita_,
complete opening; while they require for the vowels either _vivṛita_,
complete opening, or _aspṛishṭa_, non-contact.”[148]
Leaving the speculations of the past, let us now pass on to the results
which have been obtained by modern research. Thanks to the labours of
men like Alexander Ellis, Melville Bell, Helmholtz, Czermak, Brücke,
Sweet, and others, the mechanism of speech has been fairly settled; and
though many points are still open to discussion, the main facts have
been thoroughly ascertained and adequately explained. We have learnt the
real nature and causes of those phonetic elements of speech which the
old grammarians first tried to separate and classify; we have cleared
away the confusion from which even the Vedic scholars of India could
not wholly escape, and have discovered that in phonology as elsewhere,
the convenient systems of practical life do not bear a close scientific
investigation. Even the ordinary distinction of vowels and consonants
is exposed to more than one objection. It rests not upon the essential
character of the sounds themselves, but upon mere differences of
function, and its advocates have to invent a series of semi-vowels or
semi-consonants, a name which of itself indicates how incomplete and
unsatisfactory the distinction must be. The distinction, indeed, has
a basis of fact, but the fact is one which has been misapprehended or
overlooked.
Apart from the respiratory organs which supply the fuel, the chief agents
in the manufacture of speech are the throat and mouth. The breath, as it
makes its way upward, passes the vocal chords, causing these to vibrate;
and while the forms taken by the vibrations determine the quality or
timbre of the sound to be uttered, the very essence of a vowel, for
instance, consisting in the quality of the voice, the number of the
vibrations determines its pitch.
In the pitch we have to distinguish between two things, the chest or
true notes and the head or falsetto notes, respectively due to the
position and action of the vocal chords. In the chest notes the vocal
chords are stiffened and laid side by side, so that when the flow of
breath comes from the lungs, they are forced aside for a moment, to
spring back the next and cause a series of intermittent puffs of breath.
In the falsetto notes, on the other hand, the muscles of the vocal chords
are not contracted, nor is the glottis wholly closed; hence only the
inner membrane of the chords is set in motion by the breath, and instead
of actually meeting one another, the chords merely narrow or enlarge the
aperture of the glottis.[149]
The forms assumed by the vibrations depend, of course, on the anatomical
structure of the vocal chords, their greater or less elasticity, and the
like. Besides quality and pitch, however, we must also take account of
the _intensity_ of the sound, this intensity or emphasis arising from the
force with which the stream of breath is expelled from the lungs, and the
corresponding strain of the muscles of the trachea and vocal chords.
In whispering, the amount of intensity is considerably diminished,
though the pitch is quite as distinct as in loud voice. The glottis is
not completely closed, but the upward flow of breath is not strong enough
to do more than produce a sort of friction, or imperfect vibration in
the vocal chords. The latter incline towards each other on the side
furthest from the arytenoids, and so give the glottis a triangular
shape; the larynx, however, may also assume other forms. Hence it is
that we may distinguish three kinds of whispered voice. We may either
have a soft whisper, where the whole glottis is narrowed, and the force
with which the breath is emitted is very slight; or a medium whisper,
where the force is greater, and only that part of the glottis left open
which lies between the arytenoids; or a loud whisper, where the force
is considerable, the false vocal chords are in close contact, and the
epiglottis bent stiffly downwards, allowing but a very small opening for
the escape of the breath. A loud whisper is rare; a medium whisper the
most common. Sighing, it may be added, is produced above the larynx,
which takes no part in its production; when the vocal chords are brought
into action, the sigh becomes a groan.
It needs but a short experience to discover the numberless varieties
of voice that may exist, and it is not uncommon for a blind man by this
means not only to distinguish the age and sex of those he meets, but
even to recognize his friends. In fact the human voice, from the deepest
male to the highest female voice, has a range of nearly four octaves,
the lowest note being E, produced by 80 vibrations per second, and the
highest C, produced by 1,024 vibrations per second. But Vierordt has
shown that in extreme cases its range is nearly 5½ octaves, from F
(produced by 42 vibrations) to A (produced by 1,708 vibrations). In the
same individual it is rare for the range of the voice to be more than
two octaves, and in ordinary speech it is generally only half an octave.
These different notes are due to changes in the length and tension of the
vocal chords and their approximation or separation, the lower notes, for
instance, requiring them to be longer, looser, and more widely separated
than in the case of the higher notes, and consequently to admit a larger
but less rapid current of air. It has been calculated that 240 different
states of tension of the vocal chords must be accurately producible at
will, in order to cause all the notes and intermediate tones heard in a
perfect voice of ordinary range. Madame Mara could effect no fewer than
2,000 changes. The four chief varieties of the voice—the bass, the tenor,
the contralto, and the soprano—are dependent on differences of pitch,
that is ultimately on differences in the length of the vocal chords.
The bass and the tenor with the intermediate baritone characterize the
man, the contralto and soprano with the intermediate mezzo-soprano
characterize the woman. The lowest note of the contralto is about an
octave higher than the lowest note of the bass, the highest soprano
about an octave higher than the highest tenor. Sometimes, however, we
find a bass voice singing the higher notes of a tenor, and yet at the
same time remaining bass. The reason of this is that the various kinds
of voice differ not only in pitch, but also in timbre. This is caused by
differences in the vocal organs. The larynx of women is smaller than that
of men; the angle formed by it in front is less acute, and the cartilages
are softer. The voice of boys is either contralto or soprano, like
that of women, though generally different in tone. There is, however,
no difference in the larynx of either boys or girls up to the age of
puberty, when in the case of boys it rapidly increases in size, and the
vocal chords become longer, thicker, and coarser.
The elevation or depression of the larynx exercises a certain modifying
influence upon the voice. When the voice is raised from a low to a high
pitch, the whole larynx, together with the trachea, is lifted towards
the base of the skull. The exact way, however, in which the trachea and
the parts above the glottis affect the voice is by no means clear. The
thyro-arytenoid muscles, which extend from the arytenoids to the recessed
angle of the thyroid cartilage, have much to do with the production of
these higher tones. They narrow the diameter of the larynx just below the
vocal chords, and the diminution of the calibre of the wind-tube nearest
the chords thus occasioned heightens the pitch. On the other hand, the
pitch is made to fall by semitones when the tube is lengthened. In
short, the greater the strength of the current of air the higher is the
pitch. The depression of the larynx produces the so-called veiled voice
(_vox clandestina_), the larynx itself being then covered by the entire
pharynx, the root of the tongue approximated to the palate, and the voice
being thus made to resound in the upper part of the pharynx under the
skull.
The precise nature of ventriloquism is not quite certain. J. Müller
states that it may be produced by speaking through an extremely narrow
glottis, during a very slow exspiration, performed only by the lateral
walls of the chest, a deep inspiration having been first taken, so as
to cause the protrusion of the abdominal viscera by the descent of the
diaphragm. Magendie, however, considers it to be produced in the larynx
by variously modifying the voice so as to imitate the changes otherwise
effected in it by distance.
The character of the voice is necessarily modified by changes in the
structure of the vocal organs, whether due to old age, to weather and
climate, to exhaustion, or to disease. In old age the ossification of
the cartilages, the diminution of muscular and nervous power, and the
degeneration of the larynx, make the voice weak, tremulous, and “piping.”
In damp chilly weather the voice is often lowered by as much as two or
three notes: indeed, nothing affects it more rapidly than a damp and
depressing atmosphere. Exhaustion, again, accounts for the dissonance
sometimes perceived in the voice of singers, while inflammation of the
lining membrane of the larynx, and other diseases, will impair or wholly
destroy the power of utterance. Loss of voice during a bad cold is a
familiar instance of the latter fact.
Lisping, stammering, and other kinds of imperfect speech, are mainly
due to nervous disease, stammering being usually caused by temporary
spasm of the glottis. Too high a palate is another cause of irregular
utterance. Dumbness, when not occasioned by deafness, as is generally
the case, must be ascribed either to malformation of the vocal organs,
or, more commonly, to disease of the nervous centres. Whistling, it must
be remembered, results from the vibration caused by the friction of the
breath against the edges of the open lips, and is wholly formed in the
mouth.
The mouth, or chamber of resonance, is especially important for the
creation of articulate speech. On the one side there are a great many
sounds which owe to it their origin, on the other side even the sounds
which are formed in the throat are necessarily modified in passing
through the mouth. While _t_, _p_, or _k_ have no existence until the
voiced breath has reached the region of the mouth, the vowels which are
formed in the throat cannot be heard in their pure and original state,
but must pass through a chamber of resonance and so become more or less
transformed. The throat, again, may remain passive, but the mouth must
always be active. Of course the mouth forms a chamber of resonance not
only for the sounds produced by the throat, but also for those produced
by itself; the larger part of the mouth, for instance, forms a chamber of
resonance for the palatal _ch_. We must remember, moreover, that a sound
can be more variously changed and modified, the larger and more variable
is the part of the mouth which serves as a chamber of resonance, that
is to say, the further back the place is in which it is manufactured.
The vowels consequently come first in capability of modification, then
the gutturals and dentals, and finally the labials. It has often been
observed that children when learning to speak are apt to change a
guttural into a dental, and say _do_ instead of _go_, the guttural being
formed further back than the dental, and so undergoing a greater amount
of modification in its passage through the mouth.
A vowel is voice freely emitted through the throat and mouth without
interruption, and modified only by the different positions assumed by
the tongue. The essence of a vowel is the quality or timbre of the
voiced breath, and this quality, as we have already seen, is due to the
varying forms taken by the vibrating vocal chords when played upon by the
breath. Necessarily, however, the quality of the voice as it leaves the
throat must be always the same, since the throat is a musical instrument
which possesses its own peculiar tone. What, then, is the cause of the
differences we notice in the quality of the vowels? Simply the mobility
of what we have called the chamber of resonance, the manifold shapes the
organs of the mouth are able to assume being so many musical instruments,
each with its peculiar tone. The partial tones or harmonics which go
to make up the quality of the voiced breath are strengthened by the
corresponding peculiar tones of the several shapes assumed by the mouth,
while at the same time those harmonics which do not agree with the
peculiar tones are dulled or deadened. Hence a vowel is the quality of
voiced breath produced by a combination of the forms of the vibrations of
the vocal chords with those of the vibrating air in the various shapes
taken by the chamber of resonance. The pitch of the vowel depends of
course on the number of vibrations during the time of utterance, and may
be detected even when the vowel is whispered. Indeed, as Donders and
Helmholtz have shown, every vowel has its characteristic pitch, whether
it is voiced or whispered. The different vowels can be heard in cases of
aphonia, where the vocal chords are more or less paralyzed, while the
_vox clandestina_ is able to rise or fall. This is explained by the fact
that even in whispering a certain friction is exercised on the vocal
chords. If, for instance, we whisper the sound of _ü_, and then let the
whisper gradually pass into a whistle, we shall always get the same tone,
and Professor Max Müller thinks that the indications of musical pitch in
the whispered vowels must be treated as “imperfect tones; that is to say,
as noises approaching to tones, or as irregular vibrations, nearly, yet
not quite, changed into regular or isochronous vibrations.”[150]
The number of possible vowel-sounds is almost infinite. The vocal
chamber of resonance is almost infinitely variable in the forms it may
assume, and it is in these forms, as we have seen, that we must find
the origin of the vowels and their _nuances_ of sound. In Prince L.-L.
Bonaparte’s alphabet, as given in Mr. A. J. Ellis’s “Early English
Pronunciation,” seventy-five vowel-sounds (exclusive of _ḷ_ and _ṛ_) are
distinguished from one another, ten of which occur in no actual language,
and of the remaining sixty-five, fifty occur each in less than nine
European dialects. For practical purposes, however, it is necessary to
analyze the formation of those vowels only which are heard most usually
in spoken language, always remembering that the _nuances_ of which these
are capable are nearly unlimited, and that the same speaker is constantly
varying what he intends and believes to be the same vowel-sound. Speaking
generally, we may say that in pronouncing the vowels we invariably raise
the tongue towards the palate, but not so as to touch it—as in the case
of the consonants—the lips being passive in some instances, and rounded
in others. It is needless to note that in phonology, as in all other
departments of the science of language, the Italian pronunciation of the
vowels must be adopted. Our erroneous pronunciation of the vowel-symbols
is not one of the least important reasons for urging a reform of English
spelling.
The three fundamental vowels, round which all the others group
themselves, are _a_, _i_, and _u_; and though it is not necessary to
hold that these were the first vowel-sounds articulated by man, it
is necessary to regard them, for analytical purposes, as the primary
elements to which the rest may be ultimately referred. According to
Winteler, these three vowels must be arranged in a straight line, of
which _i_ forms one end and _u_ the other, _a_ standing in the middle.
In forming _a_ the tongue is in a more constrained position than in
the case of any other vowel; it lies flat and retracted, while the lips
are wide open. Helmholtz makes its inherent tone B″ flat. Owing to
the constrained position of the tongue, this vowel is more liable to
be modified than any other; the “neutral” _a_ is scarcely ever heard,
produced as it is by the gradual narrowing of the movement of the
tongue from the back of the mouth, where the obscure _a_ of _father_ is
heard, to the front of the mouth, where we get the broad _ä_ of _pair_.
This neutral _a_ which may be heard in the Italian _ămātă_ is not the
“natural” sound it is sometimes called; different parts of the mouth must
be modified to create it, occasioning the nasal sound we perceive in
moaning if the mouth remains passive, or the shrill _ä_ of the new-born
child, if the nasal orifice is closed by the elevation of the soft
palate.[151] The belief that language was once in a stage in which the
neutral _a_ was the only vowel known is contradicted by the facts of
phonology.
A stronger effort of articulation is required for _i_ and _u_. The lips
must be slightly opened, the larynx raised, and the tongue pushed upward,
so that its front approaches the hard palate, if we want to produce _i_,
the natural pitch of which is said to be D⁗. The movement of the tongue
from the back to the front of the mouth, with a gradual narrowing of the
air passage, forms both the _i_ of _mill_, and the _i_ of _meal_.[152] As
we shall see, the position of the tongue in forming _i_ approaches that
required for forming the palatals, and thus explains the relationship
that exists between them. For _u_ the tongue is raised towards the soft
palate, the larynx lowered, and the lips rounded; hence the connection
between this vowel and the labials. Its connection with the gutturals,
as illustrated by the change of _werra_ into _guerre_, or _vespa_ into
_guêpe_, is explained by the position of the tongue, which approaches the
soft palate in forming _u_, and touches it in forming _k_ or _g_. The
rounded shape of the mouth needed by _u_, as compared with its narrow
neck-like appearance needed by _i_, strengthens the deep partial tones,
and dulls the sharp ones, thus occasioning the converse effect of _i_. In
fact, _u_ is essentially the vowel of the bass, _i_ of the soprano. The
inherent tone of _u_ is F.
It is obvious that an almost endless series of modifications may be made
in the primary vowels by slight changes in the position of the organs
by which they are produced. Between _a_ and _i_ stands _e_; between
_i_ and _u_, _o_. In pronouncing _e_ the tongue is less raised than in
pronouncing _i_; for _o_, the back of the tongue is less raised and the
lips more widely opened than for _u_. In _o_, however, as in _u_, the
lips have to come into play; hence it is that these two sounds are so
frequently weakened to _e_ and _i_, whereas the converse change never
takes place. In _e_ and _i_ we have a simple and not a double action.
According to Helmholtz, the inherent pitch of _o_ is B′ flat, of _e_, B‴
flat or F′.
But _e_ and _o_ may again undergo considerable change. If while
pronouncing close _e_ (as in the French _été_ or German _see_) we round
the lips, the sound is produced which is represented by _ö_ in Middle
and Southern German and _eu_ in French, the short sound of which may be
heard in the German _böcke_. It lies, it will be observed, between _e_
and _o_, and its inherent pitch is C‴ sharp. Closely related to this _ö_
is the German _ü_, French _u_. This sound is produced by rounding the
lips when the organs of speech are in position for pronouncing _i_, which
explains the use of _ü_ and _i_ as rhyming equivalents in German poetry.
_Ü_ consequently lies between _i_ and _u_, though, from another point of
view, it may be described as standing furthest from _a_ in a series of
which _ö_ forms the centre. The inherent pitch of _ü_ is G‴.
Besides _o_, we have also the sound heard long in words like _bought_ or
_aúgust_, and short in words like _not_ and _augúst_, formed by slightly
depressing the tongue, widening the air-passage, and rounding the lips to
a less extent than in the case of _o_.
Other vowel-sounds which may be noticed are the _e_ of the French
_prêtre_, German _väter_, whose natural pitch is made G″ or D‴, the
closely related open _e_ (_ä_) of the English _pair_, the short _a_ of
English closed syllables like _hat_ or _happy_, the short _e_ of the
English _men_, and the short _i_ of the English _hit_, _pill_. These
short vowels are in great measure due to the little use made of the lips
in articulation, and the compensatory exercise of the tongue, which
characterize modern English. It is small wonder that we experience so
much difficulty in pronouncing _ö_ and _ü_, when even our _u_ is uttered
with lips scarcely at all rounded. On the other hand, whenever we find
these sounds in a language, we may conclude that we have to do with a
speech which gives the lips their full share in articulation. Sievers
would call those vowels _passive_ in which all the organs of speech
needed for their clear pronunciation are not brought into play, fully
pronounced vowels being termed _active_.[153]
The same lazy pronunciation of cultivated English which has almost
dispensed with the service of the lips is the cause of the increasing
preponderance of the so-called neutral vowel heard in such words as
_but_, _virtue_, _dove_, _bird_, _oven_. Except in affected pronunciation
we may detect it in most unaccented syllables, especially if they
happen to be final; thus we have _diligĕnce_, _muttŏn_, _ăgainst_,
_finăl_, _evĭl_, _valuăblĕ_. So, too, as Professor Max Müller remarks,
“_town_ sinks to _Paddingtŏn_, _ford_ to _Oxfŏrd_.” He believes it to
be pronounced with non-sonant or whispered breath.[154] Mr. A. J. Ellis
would make it voice in its least modified form; and Mr. Sweet regards it
as a mere voice-glide. The “indistinct” vowel heard in Arabic words by
travellers seems to be identical with it. Its existence in a language
is a sign of age and decay; meaning has become more important than
outward form, and the educated intelligence no longer demands a clear
pronunciation in order to understand what is said. The participation
of all the organs of speech in the creation of vowel-sounds is, on the
contrary, a mark of linguistic freshness and youth. When we find both
tongue and lips equally active in the formation of _u_ and _i_, we may
feel pretty sure that we are in the presence of an uncultivated dialect.
Vowels formed by combining the position of the tongue required for _u_
with that of the lips required for _i_ are extremely rare in Aryan
speech; an exceptional instance is to be met with in the Russian _jery_
(_y_).
But we must never forget the infinite capability of modification
possessed by a vowel. The same vowel-sound of the same word is not only
apt to be pronounced differently by two natives of the same country,
but even by the speaker himself at different times, particularly if
his attention has been directed to his pronunciation of the sound in
question. It is true that the shades of difference between the sounds may
be so fine as to escape all but the specially trained ear; but this does
not prove them to be any the less real. Putting aside quantity, accent,
emphasis, or accidental alteration in the vocal organs, it is difficult
to pronounce the same word twice over in exactly the same way, so far, at
least, as its vowels are concerned. It is not wonderful, therefore, that
it is in their vowels that dialects soonest and most easily alter, and
that the vowel-system is the best guide in mapping out the several stages
in the history of a language. Of course the character of a vowel-sound
is materially affected by its position in a word, or by the consonants
with which it is associated; the pronunciation of the same vowel varies
in a closed or an open syllable. Long and short vowels, too, differ not
only quantitatively, but qualitatively also. Every vowel has both its own
peculiar pitch and a pitch dependent on the length of the vocal chords.
The peculiar pitch is the result of the resonance-chamber in which the
vowel is formed. The high pitch of _i_ is due to the narrow air-passage
in the front of the mouth in which it is produced, while the lowered
pitch of _a_ and _u_ is caused in the one case by the greater size of the
resonance-chamber, and in the other by the narrow opening of the lips.
The same pitch may be produced by different modifications of the same
resonance-chamber. Thus the French _eu_ in _fleur_, produced by slightly
raising the front part of the tongue and rounding the lips, has the same
pitch as the English _e_ in _err_, produced without any rounding of the
lips at all.
But we have not yet finished with the vowels. The mouth is not the only
agent concerned with their production. Brücke[155] asserts that the bones
of the skull itself participate in the vibration caused by the utterance
of the high-pitched vowels. However this may be, the larynx, the
posterior wall of the pharynx, and the _velum pendulum_, or soft palate,
with the uvula attaching to it, have all to do with the creation of
vowel-sounds. Czermak has proved by experiment that the _velum pendulum_
changes its place with each vowel that is uttered, rising successively
for the pronunciation of _a_, _e_, _o_, _u_, and _i_. The nasal orifice,
too, is closed during the pronunciation of some vowels, and more or less
open during that of others. _A_ and _e_ were the only two vowels which
a young man named Leblanc, whose larynx was completely closed, was able
to utter; while, on the other hand, experiment has shown that with _i_,
_o_, and _u_ the passage to the nose is shut, slightly open with _e_,
and considerably open with _a_. From this it will be seen that the term
“nasal vowel” is a misnomer. Nasal vowels, in fact, are produced by
dropping the uvula, and so allowing the air to vibrate freely through the
cavities which connect the nose with the pharynx. So far from a passage
of the air through the nose being necessary, we may even increase the
nasal twang by stopping the nostrils. The strength of the nasalization
depends on the distance of the _velum pendulum_, or soft palate, from
the tongue; and in languages like French, in which much use is made of
nasalized vowels, the vowel is frequently followed by a true guttural
nasal. It has often been noticed that French, in spite of its strong
tendency to nasalize the vowels, has no nasalized _i_ or _u_. The cause
of this deficiency is very simple. A nasalized vowel requires a free
passage for the air from the pharynx to the nose; but this is rendered
almost impossible in the formation of _i_, where the tongue is raised so
high as to send most of the air through the mouth however much depressed
the _velum_ may be, as well as in the formation of _u_, where the tongue
is pushed backward towards the soft palate itself. A nasal _i_, however,
occurs in Portuguese, and probably also in the Sanskrit _simha_, “lion.”
Every vowel-sound, then, demands three main conditions for its
production—the exspiration of air from the lungs, the vibration of the
vocal chords, and the formation of a chamber of resonance by the organs
of speech. The three conditions must co-exist if we are to have a simple
vowel of definite quality, though the exspiration of air need not last
beyond the moment at which the vowel-sound is formed. But the position of
the organs of articulation both before and after its formation occasions
important differences in the manner in which it is introduced or ceases
to be heard. In quick and lively utterance, the energy with which the
stream of air is emitted makes it difficult for each exspiration to
be exactly simultaneous with the corresponding vibration of the vocal
chords, while if the exspiration is weak, the vocal chords are apt for
a moment not to vibrate. In order to give the chords on the one side
the resisting power requisite in energetic exspiration, and on the
other side to make them vibrate without delay in weak exspiration, the
windpipe must be contracted for a second, thus checking the outflow of
breath and causing the chords to vibrate in unison. The sonant breath so
produced is the _spiritus lenis_ of our old school-grammars, the slight
noise produced by the check given in the throat to the uprush of air
from the lungs. The noise may easily be detected in whispering, or in
the pronunciation of a word like _’ear_, when a special effort is made
to prevent it from degenerating into _year_, and the fact that it is a
noise will explain the dislike felt by the sensitive Greek to what the
grammarians term a _hiatus_. The _spiritus lenis_ varies according as it
is the result of a compression of the _chordæ vocales_ alone, or of the
false _chordæ vocales_ as well; but it is doubtful whether we can treat
it as a distinct consonant and not rather as the pure tone of the voice.
Perhaps it should most strictly be called a glide. It readily passes into
the non-sonant aspirate or _spiritus asper_, by allowing the breath to
pass through the throat without check or hindrance. The glottis, indeed,
is in the latter case slightly narrowed and the larynx stiffened, but
the difference between the rough and soft aspirates is that the one is
a continuous sound, the other a checked breath. The vocal chords are
brought together while the breath is passing through the throat, and
since their movement may be either quick or gradual the hard aspirate or
_h_ may correspondingly vary in character. As Czermak first pointed out,
the more usual hard aspirate is that produced by the gradual compression
of the vocal chords when they remain for a moment in a given contracted
position.[156]
The same causes which produce the _spiritus lenis_ or the _spiritus
asper_ at the beginning of the vowel-sound produce similar results at
its end. It may terminate with a weak breathing, a firm breathing, or
a non-sonant aspirate. In the case of a weak breathing the exspiration
either ceases before the vocal chords have begun to vibrate, thus
resulting in a long vowel, or at the very moment at which the windpipe
is opened to admit the passage of air, the result being a short
vowel. The weak breathing answers to what may be called the neutral
vocalic utterance, so rarely heard in language, when the vowel-sound
is introduced without either the soft or hard aspirate, the windpipe
being merely narrowed sufficiently to set the vocal chords in motion at
the same moment that the exspiration takes place. The firm breathing
corresponds with the _spiritus lenis_, and is due to a sudden check
given to the vibrating voice. Examples of it occur in words like _no!_
_bah!_ uttered abruptly, or where we wish to divide two similar vowels
one from the other. The non-sonant aspirate is produced by continuing
the exspiration for a while after the opening of the windpipe, and may
be heard in final vowels which are at once short and strongly accented.
The non-sonant aspirate is sometimes combined with the firm breathing,
especially in Danish, where such words as _ti_, _nei_, are pronounced
with a double exspiratory effort, the second consisting of a non-sonant
breath of more or less strength, jerked up, as it were, after the vowel.
Now, let us stop for a moment to remind ourselves of the distinction
between sonant and non-sonant. Non-sonant or surd sounds (also called
“hard” and “breathed”) are breath as modified by the organs of speech;
sonants, “soft” or “voiced” sounds, are voice similarly modified, voice
being breath when played upon by the vibrating _chordæ vocales_ in its
passage through the partially closed glottis. Voice, therefore, continues
to be heard without interruption as long as we have a succession of
sonants following one upon the other; the transition or “glide” from
one sonant to another consisting simply in the change of position
assumed by the organs of speech. In pronouncing the sound _al_, all
that happens in passing from _a_ to _l_ is a transference of the tongue
from the position required for forming _a_ to the position required for
forming _l_; voice continues without interruption. Now it is clear that
while voice is passing from _a_ to _l_, neither pure _a_ nor pure _l_
can be sounded, though the time occupied by its passage (that is, by
the change in the position of the tongue) is so infinitesimally small
that the sound or sounds actually produced cannot be heard, and all we
can be conscious of is a modification of _a_ at its end or of _l_ at
its beginning. If we have two successive vowels, each belonging to a
different syllable, a separate effort of exspiration is needed for both,
and the transition-sounds are apt to escape notice from the weakening
of the exspiration during the interval between the two efforts; but if
the vowels do not belong to distinct syllables, the result is wholly
different. Diphthongs, as we term them, consist in the combination of
two simple vowels, usually short, into a single syllable pronounced,
therefore, with a single exspiratory effort, and with the stronger accent
on the first vowel. The sound we hear is produced while the organs of
speech are being changed from the position required for the one vowel to
the position required for the other. We have only to sing the diphthongs
_ai_ or _au_ on a long note to hear a distinct _i_ and _u_ at the end
of each, and the Sanskrit grammarians discovered more than two thousand
years ago that the diphthongs _ê_ and _ô_ were really combinations of
_a_ + _i_ and _a_ + _u_. The primary condition of the existence of a
diphthong is the rapid transition from one of the component vowels to the
other, and this renders the true resolution of a diphthongal sound so
extremely difficult except to the specially trained ear. Once acquainted
with the two component vowels, we can easily determine the intermediate
or transition sounds in which the diphthong really consists; but written
documents rarely do acquaint us accurately with them. Diphthongs whose
second element is _e_ or _o_ have sometimes been termed “imperfect”
and considered of younger origin than those whose second element is
_i_ or _u_, because of their greater fulness of tone and consequent
inappropriateness to the unaccented place in the compound; but such a
view does not seem to be correct. It appears certain, however, that
languages show a tendency to form diphthongs the longer they live and
the greater the extent to which they have been affected by phonetic
decay. English is a prominent example of this tendency; our vowels are
all becoming diphthongs; even the first personal pronoun _I_ (_ai_) has
become one, and already we hear _aither_ and _naither_ more frequently
than _either_ (_eether_) and _neither_. The so-called long vowels which
occur in such words as _say_, _no_, _he_, are all diphthongal, and some
of the local dialects have carried the tendency even further than the
literary language.
The existence of triphthongs has been disputed, and no doubt most of
the alleged cases, such as _iei_ or _ieu_ in the Romance idioms, are
either dissyllables or consist of a semi-vowel followed by a diphthong.
But, as Sievers remarks:[157] “the transition from the first to the
second component element of a diphthong may be so prolonged that even
the transition sounds themselves may be distinctly heard.” As for
semi-vowels, they differ from the first element of a diphthong only in
having lost the accent and being followed by a strongly accented vowel.
Hence they come to assume the function of sonant consonants. Hence, too,
the necessity that the vowels in which they originate should possess less
fulness of tone than the vowels by which they are immediately followed.
We may have _yá_ and _wá_, but hardly _ᵃᵢ_ and _ᵃᵤ_. Naturally _i_ and
_u_ most readily pass into semi-vowels, partly from their comparatively
weak tone, partly from the compression of the air-passage needed to
produce them, partly from the similar position of the organs of speech in
forming the spirants _y_ and _w_. These spirants, as we shall see, are
not to be confounded with the semi-vowels _y_ and _w_.
A vowel, then, is the quality or timbre of voice as modified by the
tongue and lips, and consists of the forms assumed by the vibrating air
as it passes through the windpipe and vocal chords. But the tongue and
lips naturally tend towards the same position whatever be the vowel
sounded. A man who has been accustomed to give his tongue a particular
position in pronouncing _i_ will give it much the same position in
pronouncing _e_, for we must never forget that there is an almost
infinite number of _i_’s or _e_’s varying with the slight changes of
position of the tongue and lips when placed for enunciating those vowels.
According to the greater or less use made of the lips in speaking will
be the character of all the vowel-sounds of a language. The vowels,
consequently, fall into systems, and in investigating the phonology of
a dialect, we have to inquire not only what vowels it possesses, but
more particularly what system these fall into. The basis of English
vowel pronunciation is the passive position of the lips, just as in the
Holstein dialect it is the withdrawal and flattening of the tongue.
Sievers states, that in speaking the dialect of Lower Hesse the tongue
must be relaxed and in a position of the slightest possible tension;
while, on the contrary, in the Saxon dialects the whole tongue must be
tense, the throat stiffened and the exspiration energetic. “Hence the
hard, somewhat screaming impression made by this dialect in contrast with
the dull, almost heavy and negative character of the Hessian.”[158]
But it is time to turn from the vowels to the consonants, the skeleton,
as it were, of articulate utterance. A language could consist wholly of
vowels; indeed, a Polynesian dictionary contains numbers of words which
have not a single consonant in them, and children frequently mark the
differences between words rather by the vowels than by the consonants
they contain. The earliest systems of writing other than ideographic
are syllabaries and not alphabets, while alphabets like the Sanskrit
ascribe an “inherent” vowel to each of their consonants. But though
vowels are indispensable to an organized language, it by no means follows
that they were equally indispensable to the first attempts at speech.
As a matter of fact, a preponderance of vowels such as characterizes
the Polynesian dialects is a sign of phonetic decay and linguistic old
age. “Consonants,” says Professor Max Müller, “are much more apt to be
dropped than to sprout up between two vowels.” If we had only the Greek
μέρμερος or the Latin _memor_ before us, we should have no idea that they
have lost an initial sibilant; in fact, this only becomes apparent when
we compare the Sanskrit _smar_, “to remember.” The endeavour sometimes
made to reduce the Parent-Aryan alphabet to a small number of simple
and easily pronounced consonants, is founded on the fallacy that the
results of a phonetic analysis of the words we utter and a reduction
of the sounds they contain into their leading types, is identical with
the primitive alphabet of the Aryan race. On the contrary, the sounds
of a language become more simplified and clearly marked the longer it
continues to be spoken, and the primitive Aryan alphabet, instead of
being a simple list of primary sounds, from which all that are harsh or
indistinct have been carefully eliminated, must really have resembled the
existing alphabets of barbarous or semi-barbarous tribes, and included a
large variety of consonants, many of which we should find it extremely
difficult to reproduce.
Consonants may be divided, in the first place, into hard and soft,
or, as they are more usually termed, surd and sonant. A surd consonant
consists of checked breath, a sonant consonant of checked voice. If, in
the second place, either breath or voice is completely checked in its
passage through the organs of speech, an explosive or momentary (also
called a stopped or mute) consonant is heard at the moment the check
is removed; if the check is not complete, and the organs of speech
only approximate so that the breath cannot escape without friction, a
fricative (spirant, “unstopped”) or continuous consonant is the result.
Where a spirant or fricative is immediately preceded by an explosive, a
double sound or affricative is the result (_e.g._ German _pf_, Armenian
_t’š_); where the spirant follows the explosive we have the aspirated
letters, which will be spoken of hereafter. Among the continuous
consonants must be ranked the nasals, produced by dropping the uvula and
so allowing some of the breath to make its way to the nostrils through
the pharynx, and the trills produced by the vibration of the uvula, the
lips, or more commonly the tongue. Distinct from the nasals and the
trills are the central continuous consonants (_h_, _ch_, _y_, English
_r_, _w_, _wh_, and the sibilants) formed by lifting the centre and point
of the tongue to the centre and front of the palate, and the lateral
continuous consonants (_l_, and, according to Bell, English _th_, _f_,
_v_), in forming which the breath is allowed to escape along the edges
of the tongue. A further cross division will be into liquids, gutturals,
dentals, palatals, labio-dentals, and labials, to which may be added the
linguals or cacuminals (cerebrals) of Sanskrit.
_The Liquids._—Among the liquids should properly be reckoned only
those kinds of _r_ and _l_ which stand to the spirant _r_ and _l_ in the
same relation that the vowel _i_ stands to the spirant _y_. In forming
the vowels, as we have seen, the tongue assumes a dorsal position, that
is, some part of its back is raised towards the palate; in forming the
liquids, on the other hand, the tongue has either an oral (central) or
a lateral position, the liquid _r_ requiring the articulation of the
centre and tip, the liquid _l_ that of the sides. But there are several
kinds of _r_, which may be classed as cacuminal, spirant, alveolar or
dental, uvular or guttural, and laryngeal. The cacuminal _r_ is the
purest liquid _r_ that we hear, inasmuch as it is wholly untrilled, and
is especially common in cultivated English. In order to produce it, the
front surface of the tongue is hollowed out into a spoon-like shape and
raised towards the hard palate behind the alveolar teeth-roots of the
upper jaw, while the edge of the tongue is stiffened and kept free from
any sort of vibration. It will be clear from this how closely allied
this cacuminal _r_ is to the vowels, and we can easily understand the
readiness with which it combines with a vowel-sound when we remember
that it may be formed in almost any part of the hard palate, while the
lips have free play during its creation. Corresponding to the cacuminal
_r_ is the spirant (or “buzzed”) _r_, which also occurs plentifully in
English as in such words as _try_ or _dry_. The mouth is completely
closed by the tongue when sounding _t_ or _d_, and if in passing to
the position needed for _r_ the tongue is not removed from the palate
quickly enough, or the exspiration is not sufficiently strong, a slight
fricative sound like that of _sh_ is produced which results in the
spirant _r_. As for the dental or alveolar _r_, all that is requisite to
produce it is to raise the front part of the tongue, at the same time
slightly arching its extreme edges, and so obtaining a constricted or
“squeezed” chamber of resonance between the side of the tongue and the
alveolars. This _r_ may be untrilled, but in German it is more frequently
a trilled one. The trill is caused by the force of the exspiration which
strikes the thin hollowed edge of the tongue in an outward direction, the
tongue the moment after returning to its former position like a piece
of india-rubber. If the two edges of the front part of the tongue be
pressed against the teeth, the tip of the tongue between them being alone
allowed free play, and accordingly vibrating in a very small and narrow
space, a sound is heard approaching that of _s_ or _sh_. The stronger the
uprush of breath and the vibration it occasions, the plainer will be the
sibilated sound; indeed, a genuine sibilant can even attach itself to the
liquid, as in the Polish _rz_. The uvular or guttural _r_ is supposed by
Sievers to be a modern substitution for the trilled alveolar _r_. At any
rate it is produced by lifting the back of the tongue to the soft palate
and forming a deep groove along the middle of it, in which the uvula can
vibrate freely. The groove, however, is frequently left wholly or nearly
unformed, the consequence being a very grating character acquired by
the _r_, which then passes over into the sonant guttural spirant heard
in sounding the modern Greek γ. The laryngeal _r_ was first observed
and described by Brücke, who makes it arise from sinking the voice so
that the vocal chords cease to vibrate audibly, and merely produce
intermittent and explosive sounds.
Each kind of _l_ is formed in the same way, by raising the tip of the
tongue and so closing the orifice of the mouth, at the same time allowing
the breath to pass along the two sides of the tongue in successive
oscillations produced by the vibrations of the elastic edges of the
tongue. We may distinguish the cacuminal _l_ in which the tip of the
tongue is bent backwards as in the cacuminal _r_; the alveolar _l_
with the edge of the tongue laid against the alveolars; the dental or
interdental _l_ in which the flattened surface of the tongue fills up the
space between the two sides of the mouth; and the dorsal _l_ (as in the
Spanish _llano_) in which the tip of the tongue presses against the lower
incisors, while the centre of the tongue is raised towards the alveolars
of the upper teeth. The best-known variety of the cacuminal _l_ is that
of the Welsh _ll_ formed by pressing the flattened tip of the tongue
against the gums of the upper teeth and allowing the breath to escape on
its right side. The same sound is heard in the Icelandic _hl_ and _l_
before a _t_, and also in Cheroki,[159] though in Icelandic the tongue is
pressed against both sides of the mouth. A half-sonant, spirant _l_ may
be heard when the exspiration is strong; a surd _l_ often occurs at the
end of a word or after surd consonants (particularly _t_ and _s_). The
sound of the _l_ may be made clearer or obscurer by raising or depressing
the front part of the tongue, and so narrowing or enlarging the space
between its edges and the teeth, and since the vowels may be pronounced
with the tip of the tongue on the palate, they may readily pass into _l_
by simply broadening the surface of the tongue.
We have already seen that the tongue is not the only organ of speech
which may be “trilled.” In the Arabic _grhain_ (غ), the Northumberland
_burr_ and the French Provençal _r_, _grasseyé_, the uvula which lies
along the back of the tongue towards the teeth is very distinctly made
to vibrate. “If,” Mr. A. J. Ellis says, “the tongue is more raised and
the vibration indistinct or very slight, the result is the English _r_ in
_more_, _poor_, while a still greater elevation of the tongue produces
the _r_ heard after palatal vowels, as _hear_, _mere_, _fire_. These
trills are so vocal that they form distinct syllables, as _surf_, _serf_,
_fur_, _fir_, _virtue_, _honour_, and are with difficulty separable from
the vowels.” The lips, too, may be trilled, the result being _brh_, a
sound constantly heard from children.
_The Nasals._—The characteristic of a nasal is, as the name declares,
the participation of the nose in producing the sound. The breath passes
through the nose rather than through the mouth. Sometimes, however, all
that happens is the removal of the membrane which separates the nasal
orifice from the pharynx; this alone is indispensable to the formation of
a nasal letter. Hence its resemblance to a vowel, the buccal tube being
alike silent in both cases. If we try to converse when walking uphill
we shall find that the nasals are longest heard. These nasals must be
classified as labial, dental, palatal, and guttural, according to the
part of the speaking apparatus in which the current of air is checked in
its exit, and it will be best to treat them along with the other sounds
formed in the same part. It should be noted, however, that the so-called
surd nasal which we hear in _hm!_ has really, as Sievers remarks, not the
slightest similarity to a nasal, but approximates to the aspirates or
breathings.
The traditional division of the consonants into labial, dental, palatal,
cerebral (cacuminal) and guttural, though not scientifically precise, is
yet too familiar to be disregarded, and we shall therefore follow it so
far as is possible. We must, however, remember at starting the primary
distinction between the two classes of letters, called variously hard
and soft, tenues and mediæ, surds and sonants, as well as between those
called momentary (explosive) and continuous or checks and fricatives.
What this distinction consists in has already been explained.
_The Labials._—The labials may be subdivided into pure labials, with
the formation of which the lips only have to do, and the labio-dentals,
in the formation of which the teeth also participate. In pronouncing the
surd _p_, the sonant _b_, the nasalized _m_, or the middle German _w_,
the lips are either wholly or (as in _wh_) almost wholly closed. _B_
only differs from _p_ in being pronounced with voice instead of breath,
the voice partly preceding, partly following the check occasioned by the
closure of the lips. As in all sonant letters, the exspiration is less
forcible than in the case of surd letters. The labio-dentals _f_ and _v_
are merely modifications of the rough and soft aspirates by pressing the
lower lip against the upper teeth. When the lips are brought together
without any interference of the teeth the _spiritus lenis_ becomes the
German _w_ as heard in a word like _Quelle_. Our _wh_, or rather _hw_,
and _w_ are continuous sounds, the lips being slightly opened, the back
of the tongue raised, and the breath passing over its central part.
_The Dentals._—The articulation needed for the dentals is partly
oral, partly alveolar, partly dorsal. The common principle, however,
involved in the formation of them all is the same; the tongue must be
brought against the teeth. The so-called cerebral or cacuminal dentals
of Sanskrit and the Dravidian tongues (_ṭ_, _ḍ_, _ṭh_, _ḍh_) are due to
oral articulation, the tongue being made convex and the lower surface
raised towards the palate. The English _t_ and _d_ are also said to be
cerebral, though the tip of the tongue is not bent very sharply backwards
in forming them. Alveolar articulation is needed for the dentals when
they have to be pronounced with the edge of the flattened tongue pressed
against the alveolars of the upper teeth, while in dorsal articulation
the point of the tongue is simply turned back against the lower teeth,
its convex being at the same time lifted to the palate. It is in this way
that the Bohemian dorsal _t_ is formed. The dorsal dentals may be varied
by raising the back of the tongue nearer to the mouth or the throat, the
tip either resting behind the lower teeth or being raised to the upper
alveolars. Besides the surd dental _t_ and sonant dental _d_, we have
also a series of dental spirants which bear the same relation to _t_
and _d_ that _f_ and _v_ bear to _p_ and _b_. By slightly opening the
teeth and stopping the aperture with the extended edges of the tongue we
produce the interdental sounds heard in _breath_ or _think_ and _breathe_
or _then_. The first _th_ (or _thorn_ þ) differs from the second (ð)[160]
in being pronounced with the rough breathing instead of the soft
breathing. They stand midway between an oral and a dorsal articulation.
How readily they may pass into the labio-dentals _f_ and _v_ is clear at
a glance; we have only to raise the lower lip a little and curl back the
tongue, and our _th_ becomes an _f_. Equally readily, as we shall see, is
the passage from them to a sibilant. We seldom meet with an interdental
consonant; Sievers, however, states that they exist in Servian and
Armenian, where they regularly represent the whole class of dentals.
_The Palatals._—The palatals come next. They stand between the dentals
and gutturals, and are formed by throwing the middle of the tongue,
raised as it were into a hump, against that part of the roof of the mouth
where the hard palate begins. The sound (_ch_) heard in the English
_church_ or the Italian _cielo_ is now held to be, not a palatal, but
a dental (_t_ followed by _sh_), and we must go to the Sanskrit (_ch_)
as still pronounced to find a type of the whole palatal series. It “is
formed most easily,” says Professor Max Müller, “if we place the tongue
and teeth in the position for the formation of _sh_ in _sharp_, and then
stop the breath by complete contact between the tongue and the back of
the teeth.” It will be seen from this that the true _ch_ is not a double
letter, a compound of _t_ and _sh_ or _s_, but a single consonant which
ought to be denoted by a single character. The Sanskrit palatal _ch_ may
have had the same pronunciation as the Armenian _t‘ sh_,[161] as Sievers
thinks, or it may have been equivalent to _ky_. However this may be, it
is plain from the great extent of the “chamber of resonance” in which
the palatals are formed—the whole of the hard palate being available
for the purpose—that a large number of palatal sounds is possible. They
may range, in fact, from _ky_ to _tsh_. The guttural _k_ passes easily
enough into the palatalized _ky_, as may be seen from the pronunciation
of _kind_ and _cow_ as _kyind_ and _kyow_, not unfrequently heard in
English; indeed, all that is requisite for the transition is for the
front part of the tongue to assume the position needed for _y_, while the
back part is in that needed for _k_. In the northern dialects of Jutland
_j_ is heard after _k_ and _g_ when followed by _œ_, _e_, _o_, and _ö_.
The German “soft” guttural aspirate or palatal spirant in words like
_ich_, _licht_, is the result of the _spiritus asper_ passing the middle
of the tongue when raised against the hard palate, _y_ in _you_ or _yet_
being due to a softening of the breath, the organs of speech remaining
unchanged. The palatal sibilants will have to be considered separately.
_The Gutturals._—Putting aside the cerebrals, which have been treated
under the head of the dentals, we now come to the gutturals, usually an
important class of sounds in savage idioms. First of all we have the
tenuis _k_, produced by bringing the root of the tongue against the
soft palate, together with the deeper _k_ heard in the Semitic _koph_
or Georgian _q_. Next is the media _g_, to create which breath has to
be changed into voice. Then will come the guttural nasal _ng_ (as in
_sing_), and the continuous _ch_ and _g_ heard in the German _nach_ and
_Tage_. The sound heard in _nach_ or the Scotch _loch_ is formed by
raising the tongue against the soft palate or uvula, and so checking the
uprush of breath, its sonant representative being the _g_ of _Tage_. The
result of only slightly checking the uprush of breath in the latter case
is the passage of the guttural into a semi-vowel. This sonant _g_ is
the γ of modern Greek; it sometimes takes the place of the uvular _r_,
though this office more properly belongs to the sonant _g_ of Armenian
pronounced further back in the mouth. The surd _ch_ may be similarly
modified by a posterior pronunciation, and so become the Armenian _xe_,
the Russian _x_, the Polish _ch_, and the deep _ch_ of the Swiss.
_The Sibilants._—The main division of sibilated sounds is into the surd
_s_ and _sh_, and the sonant _z_ and _j_. When the centre and tip of
the tongue are raised to the centre and front of the palate, the breath
or _spiritus asper_ is modified into _s_ (as in _sin_), the voice or
_spiritus lenis_ into _z_ (as in _zeal_ or _rise_). When the tongue is
turned back with its lower surface against the alveolars of the upper
teeth, less of the palate being covered than is required for _s_ and
_z_, breath becomes _sh_ (as in _sharp_), voice _j_ (as in _azure_,
_pleasure_, French _jamais_). The ordinary German _s_ is a dorsal one,
the current of air being allowed to pass between the upper alveolars
and the lower surface of the uplifted tongue; in North German dialects,
however, we frequently meet with an alveolar _s_, formed in much the same
way as the alveolar _r_. The same _s_ also occurs in English, as well as
a cacuminal _s_ distinguished by a more pronounced retraction of the tip
of the tongue and narrower space between it and the palate. The palatal
_ś_, found in Russian, for instance, before the weak vowels (_e_, _i_,
&c.), only differs from the dorsal _s_ in the more retracted position
of the tongue. _Sh_ (_j_) can be modified in three ways. The channel
formed in the tongue when pronouncing _s_ may be so diminished as to
allow the breath to strike against the lips, or the lips may form with
it an approximately rectangular aperture, or, thirdly, the left (or more
rarely the right) side of the tongue may be pressed against the palate,
causing the breath to strike against the lips, which are generally raised
a little on the side. Sievers declares that he has sometimes heard this
unilateral _sh_ in England. However this may be, all three modifications
of _sh_ may combine with the dorsal, alveolar, cacuminal, and palatal
positions of the tongue to produce the cacuminal _sh_ of English
(identical, probably, with the Sanskrit _ś_), the palatal _mouillé_ _ś_
and _ć_ of Polish and Russian, the alveolar _sh_ of the North German
dialects, and the dorsal _sh_ of the Middle and Southern German dialects.
It is one of the many evils of our defective and misleading mode of
spelling that the surd _sh_, though a single sound, is represented by two
letters, and so cannot be distinguished from the aspirated _sh_ (as in
_gas-hole_), which is really a double sound.
These aspirated sounds consist, as we have seen, of an explosive
followed by a spirant, and they occupied an important place in the
older languages of our Aryan family of speech. A large number of roots
contain them, and the Brahmans still pronounce each part of the compound
sound distinctly, _ph_ and _th_, for instance, being pronounced as in
our _up-hill_ and _ant-hill_. The compound nature of the sound caused
sometimes the one element in it, sometimes the other, to fall away. Thus,
to a Sanskrit _tubhy(am)_ corresponds a Latin _tibi_, and the Latin
_mihi_ and Sanskrit _mahyam_ presuppose an earlier _mabhyam_, _mabhi_.
The Athenian tendency to false aspiration which has produced the initial
aspirate of ὑδώρ (Latin _unda_, _udus_) or ἵππος (Latin _equus_) has
also occasionally affected the labial tenuis. φῦσα and its kindred, for
instance, answer to the Latin _pustula_, the Lithuanian _pústi_, “to
blow;” ἄφνος is the Sanskrit _apnas_, the Latin _ops_, and κεφαλὴ is
the Sanskrit _kapâla_, the Latin _caput_. A curious metathesis of the
aspiration may take place in both Sanskrit and Greek. In Sanskrit a final
aspirated media before a following tenuis loses its aspirate, which is
transferred to the initial of the root, provided that be _g_, _d_, or _b_
(as _bhut-karoti_, “he who knows acts,” for _budh-karoti_); and in Greek
we find θρίξ becoming τριχὸς, τρέχω becoming θρέξω.
But it must be remembered that it is only the surd explosives (or
tenues) that properly can thus be combined with the rough breathing
(_h_). A difficulty occurs in the case of the sonant explosives (or
mediæ); and it is a grave question whether we ought to transcribe _gha_,
_dha_, and _bha_ by the side of _kha_, _tha_, and _pha_. In Greek, at
any rate, we have only aspirated tenues, and while τ’ followed by an
aspirate is written θ, this is never the case with δ’. At the same time,
the existence of aspirated mediæ was recognized by the Prâtiśâkhyas by
the side of the aspirated tenues, and the accuracy of the Prâtiśâkhyas
is confirmed by the requirements of etymology.
Closely connected with the sibilants are the palatal and guttural
sounds, already noticed, heard in the German _ich_, _tage_, and _acht_.
The palatal _ch_, written χ by Sievers, _jh_ by Sweet; is of two kinds.
What Sievers calls χ,[162] heard in the German _ich_, Icelandic _hjarta_,
and sometimes in such words as our _hue_, is formed on the hard palate
near the soft palate by the front part of the tongue. On the other hand,
χ,[163] as in the Dutch _g_ before _e_ and _i_, is formed in the hollow
of the arch. The guttural sonant heard in the North German _tage_, or
the modern Greek γ, is formed between the back of the tongue and the
middle of the soft palate, the tongue being lifted up towards the front
of the mouth. As already remarked, it sometimes represents the uvular
_r_; thus, Mr. Sweet says, “when the passage (of the voice) is widened
so as to remove all buzzing, the sound of (_gh_)[162] no longer suggests
(_kh_)[163] or (_g_), but rather a weak (_r_) sound.” Further back in
the mouth is formed the Armenian sonant _g_, corresponding to χ.[163]
The _ch_ of _acht_, again, may be divided into two varieties. _Ch_,[162]
formed, as stated above, between the back of the tongue and the middle of
the soft palate, is the guttural spirant usual in German after _a_, _o_,
and _u_, and heard in Scotch _loch_. Further back is formed _ch_,[163]
common in Swiss and other South German dialects. We have also _ch_,[163]
noted by Mr. Sweet in Scotch after _e_ and _i_, formed between the back
of the tongue and the place where the hard palate begins. It thus comes
very near χ.[164]
Distinct from the exspiratory sounds, whether vowels or consonants,
which have now been passed in review, are sounds formed either by
inspiration or simply by the air in the mouth itself. Winteler[165]
describes certain Swiss dialects which make use of inspiratory sounds
to disguise the voice, and the clicks characteristic of the South
African languages are examples of sounds produced without either taking
in or emitting breath. The Kafirs have borrowed the three easiest
clicks (the dental, the cerebral, and the lateral) from their Hottentot
neighbours,[166] and there are reasons for thinking that the Hottentots
themselves borrowed in turn from the more primitive Bushmen. At all
events, the labial and compound dental clicks are wanting in Hottentot,
and the Bushman fables put what Dr. Bleck calls “a most unpronounceable
click,” which does not occur otherwise in any of the dialects, into the
mouth of the hare, the anteater, and the moon.[167] These inarticulate
clicks, thus adapted to the purposes of articulate speech, bridge over
the gulf between the latter and the cries of animals, and we may see
in them a survival of those primæval utterances out of which language
was born. Traces of what may thus be termed the germs of language on
its phonetic side are met with here and there all over the globe. Thus
Haldeman describes at least three clicks heard in Texan, Chinook, and
other North American languages, _t_ in the Anadahhas of Texas, for
instance, being followed by “an effect as loud as spitting.”[168]
According to Klaproth, clicks occur in Circassian; and Bleek states that
two clicks are distinguished in the ǀikhe language of Guatemala—one
somewhat resembling the Hottentot dental click, and the other the
Hottentot palatal combined with some guttural. Mr. Whitmee has heard a
click in certain dialects spoken by the Negritos of Melanesia. Clicks
are also known among the Gallas; and Miss Lloyd has found a little boy
from Lake Ngami using clicks resembling those of Nama Hottentot. Clicks
are formed by placing the tongue or lips in the position required by an
explosive, and then sucking out the air between the organs thus brought
into play, the result being the “cluck” or “smack” with which grooms are
accustomed to encourage a horse, but in combination with the explosive
for which the organs of speech were set. According to Mr. Sweet, the
labial click is an ordinary kiss; the dental click, “the interjection
of impatience ordinarily written ‘tut.’”[169] In Káfir the clicks are
not pure, as in Bushman—that is to say, they are always accompanied by
an exspiratory consonant, which is formed at the same moment as the
click. This affords an additional reason for thinking that the Káfir
clicks are not survivals from the original condition of speech, but loans
from another people, which have been attached by way of ornament to the
existing exspiratory sounds of the language. Of the same nature as the
clicks are the implosives peculiar to Saxon German, where no distinction
is made between _d_ and _t_, or _b_ and _p_. Similar sounds are heard in
Georgian and the Armenian of Tiflis, and they must have characterized
ancient Accadian, since no distinction is made in writing between final
_d_ and _t_, _g_ and _k_, or _b_ and _p_. These implosives are due to
compression of the air between the closed glottis and the organs of
speech when in position for an explosive, by forcing the glottis upwards.
No sound is emitted until the sound is fully formed, when the final or
transition sound is curiously modified.
We have hitherto dealt with the individual sounds in the same fashion
as the lexicographer deals with individual words. But just as a word
is really but one of the elements of a sentence, and to be thoroughly
understood must be treated as such, individual sounds are but the
elements of which syllables are composed. Whatever may be the nature of a
sound when regarded apart and by itself, it is necessarily much modified
when combined in actual speech with other sounds. The syllable, and not
the single sound, is the starting-point of phonetic utterance.
A syllable must contain either a vowel or a semi-vowel, by which are
meant such inspiratory utterances as that heard in the interjection
_’m_, or the vocalic _r_ and _l_ of Slavonic and other tongues. One
of the first achievements of the phonograph has been to show that an
open syllable like _ga_ can be pronounced either backwards or forwards
indifferently when once the organs of speech are in position; and
not only so, but that when the waves of air set in motion by the
pronunciation of a word are reversed, the word will be reproduced
backwards—_əsoshiéshun_ (_association_), for instance, becoming
_nushéshiosə_.
Mr. Sweet has pointed out that syllables are divided by the stress.
Speech has to be carried on by a succession of exspirations or puffs
of breath, and naturally the force with which the breath is emitted
gradually diminishes during the continuance of the exspiration. Only in
special cases—the interjections, for example—the force increases instead
of diminishing. When the exspiration is spent, and a new breath is taken,
a new syllable begins. Wherever, therefore, the stress is laid we must
place the beginning of a new syllable. In “a name” the stress is on the
nasal, where accordingly the syllable begins; in “an aim” it is, on the
contrary, on the diphthong.
The passage from one sound to another, as has already been noticed,
consists of a series of infinitesimal intermediate sounds, corresponding
with the series of positions assumed by the vocal organs in passing from
one position to another. These intermediate sounds have been conveniently
termed “glides” by Mr. Ellis, and they play an important part in the
formation of syllables. Glides are of two kinds, as the organs of
speech may either be moved from one position to another in the shortest
possible time, or be shifted, on the way, towards another position
needed for the production of a third sound. Thus, in the syllable _ki_
we have the immediate glide required for the transition from _k_ to _i_;
in the syllable _qui_, the indirect glide from _k_ to _i_ through the
position needed for _u_. A glide may, of course, be described as either
initial or final; in _ki_, the glide of _k_ is being final, that of _i_
initial. Some of the so-called consonants and vowels are really glides.
The neutral vowel (_ə_) is termed the “voice-glide” by Mr. Sweet, as
“produced by emitting voice during the passage to or from a consonant.”
It may begin a word, as in “against,” and in English is very frequently
replaced by a liquid, as in the words “little,” “possible.” It is
also found plentifully in the Semitic languages, the Hebrew _sh’wa_,
for instance, being simply the neutral vowel or voice-glide. In words
like “follow,” when pronounced rapidly, we may hear it labialized. A
diphthong, again, is a combination of a full vowel with a glide-vowel
either before or after it, though the glide-vowels may be prolonged into
full vowels without destroying the diphthong, by equalizing the stress
upon the two elements of which it is made up. These glide-vowels (like
the consonantal glides) are produced by putting the vocal organs into
position for pronouncing a particular vowel, but not letting voice sound
until this position is being shifted to that required by the full vowel
which forms the second part of the compound, and reversing the process
when the full vowel forms the first part. Consonantal glides (_y_, _w_,
_r_, _l_, _m_, _n_) are illustrated by the sound of _y_ in _you_, and of
_r_ in _here_, and in a common South-country pronunciation of words like
_red_.[170] According to Mr. Sweet, the aspirate _h_ is a consonant in
the glottis, but “a voiceless glide-vowel in the mouth.”[171]
At all events it is often difficult to distinguish the rough breathing
from the glide which easily develops into it by the help of a little
additional stress. This glide may be detected after mediæ, tenues,
and _s_, whether initial or final, as in our _cold_ (when pronounced
emphatically), _pack_, and _big_. The Irish and Danish aspirated
consonants are formed by laying a separate stress on the glide apart from
the stress laid upon the preceding consonant. The aspirated letters of
Greek and Sanskrit, described above, are of course different, as here we
have a combination of two independent sounds, though the latter of these
(_h_) is in Mr. Sweet’s eyes a mere glide-vowel in the mouth.
Glides may be absent where two consonants formed in the same part of
the vocal organs are united together (e.g. _and_, _its_), or even where
they are formed in different parts. This is especially the case with
English. Wherever homorganic sounds are produced, the vocal organs pass
at once from the position required for the first to that required for the
second, without first falling back into the “position of indifference.”
Where an explosive is followed by a nasal, a sudden opening of the _velum
pendulum_ is substituted for the usual “explosion,” as first pointed out
by Kudelka.
Syllables may differ one from the other in respect of _pitch_ or _tone_,
of _stress_, and of _quantity_. Pitch or tone is but little noticed
by Englishmen, since with us it serves merely a logical or emotional
purpose, such as the expression of surprise or the asking of a question,
but in some languages, Chinese or Swedish or Lithuanian, for example,
every word has its own separate tone, which helps to distinguish it from
other words. This, too, was the case in Vedic Sanskrit, and in ancient
Greek and Latin, what we call the Greek accents being really the marks of
the pitch at which words were pronounced. Pitch or tone depends on the
rapidity of the vibrations of sound, and may be either rising, level,
or falling. The rising tone is that indicated by the acute accent. Tone
may also be compound, marked in Greek by the circumflex. The compound or
circumflex is heard when the tone of a vowel is again raised after it has
already passed the moment of its greatest intensity, and it may therefore
be described as composed of the acute and the grave, or of the rising
and the falling. It may be noticed in Lithuanian as well as in several
German dialects, such as the Thuringian, which have a singing character,
and when it falls upon a diphthong the second element of the diphthong is
distinctly raised in pitch. Naturally it is usually found with diphthongs
and long vowels, but short vowels combined with a liquid may also
carry the circumflex. In Greek it commonly implies a contraction, the
circumflex resulting from the coalescence of a vowel which has the acute
accent with one which has the grave.[172]
The Vedic system of accentuation best exhibits the fundamental character
of accent of pitch. The _udâtta_ or acute denotes the highest pitch
reached by the voice in a group of syllables or words. In the syllable
immediately preceding the voice naturally sinks to its lowest, thus
producing the _anudâtta_, or grave tone. After the _udâtta_, however, the
voice falls gradually; consequently the syllable which follows has the
_swarita_ or circumflex accent, and it is only the next syllable to that
which is again _anudâtta_.
But the tone is regulated by three different conditions, which
sometimes act antagonistically. It may be either a syllable-tone,
determined by the relative force with which the syllables of a word can
be uttered, dependent on the nature of the sounds of which they are
composed; or a word-tone, determined in great measure by the meaning,
and serving to distinguish words from one another; or a sentence-tone,
mostly determined by logic or the feelings. The Greek accents, like the
Vedic ones, were used to denote all three varieties of tone; while the
acute and the circumflex sometimes represent the syllable-accent (as in
θῖνα, ἔτυπον), sometimes the word-accent (as in νυμφή, νύμφα, ποδῶν),
the grave, as Sievers remarks, “is a concession to the requirements of
the sentence-tone.” Similarly in Vedic Sanskrit, the _udâtta_ which
ordinarily indicates the word-accent, falling as it does upon the
syllable (commonly the flection) to which the signification caused the
attention to be chiefly directed, seems also to have indicated the
sentence-tone, since the verb of the principal clause has no accent
whatever attached to it. Previously, however, both in Greek and Sanskrit
the accents denoted the word-tone, and the remarkable agreement between
the accentuation of the two languages enables us to restore in great
measure the accentuation of the undivided parent-speech. It cannot be
an accident, for instance, which makes the numeral seven (_saptán_,
ἑπτά) oxyton in both languages, and the numeral five (_pánchan_, πέντε)
paroxyton, or places the acute accent on the last syllable of adjectives
in -_us_; the accentuation in each instance must have been that of the
Parent-Aryan. Where the accentuation of the two languages differs, it can
generally be explained by the disturbing influence of analogy. Thus while
there is so remarkable an agreement between the accentuation of Vedic
and Greek nouns, there is next to none between that of the verbs. But an
explanation of this is forthcoming. The verb of the principal clause in
the Veda loses its accent, as has just been remarked, unless it stand at
the beginning of the sentence; in fact, it is regarded as an enclitic,
and throws its tone back upon the preceding word however many syllables
it may contain. Now in Greek a rule gradually grew up forbidding the
accent to be placed further back than the antepenultimate; the accent,
accordingly, which in the case of verbal forms of more than two syllables
would have been on the last syllable of the preceding word in the Veda
fell on the penultima of the corresponding verbal form itself in Greek.
The accentuation which thus fixed itself in the verb of the principal
clause was extended by analogy to the verb of the subordinate clause,
and eventually to verbal forms of less than three syllables; φημι, εἰμι,
and ἐστι, however, remained unaccented to bear witness to the process
whereby the Greek language had changed the original accentuation of the
Aryan verb.[173] This, like the accentuation of the noun, was mostly
(and probably at the outset altogether) on the flection-suffix to which
it called attention, and thus marked out the symbols that expressed the
grammatical relations of the sentence. In the Semitic languages, on the
contrary, the primitive accentuation was on the penultima, though there
may possibly have been an earlier time when it was upon the ultima.[174]
The tendency to throw back the accent set in early in Aryan speech; in
Latin, as in the Æolic dialect of Greece, it was uniformly as near the
beginning of a word as possible, and the preservation of the original
pitch-accent in Lithuanian is one of the most curious marks of archaism
in that most conservative of West-Aryan tongues.
In Aryan the word-tone, we have seen, was primarily used in the service
of grammar. In Chinese, Siamese, and other Taic languages, however, its
use is lexical rather than grammatical; here it serves to distinguish the
senses of words which would otherwise be pronounced in the same way. Dr.
Edkins has shown that modern Mandarin Chinese is an exceedingly decayed
speech; its initial consonants have been worn away; and all its final
consonants reduced to the same monotonous nasal. To prevent the confusion
that would thus have been occasioned in a monosyllabic language, where
the possible number of different syllables denoting words was limited
even before the corroding action of phonetic decay, tones were adapted to
the expression of meaning, and as old letters disappeared new tones came
into existence. To create a new tone, says Dr. Edkins, requires about
1,200 years.
The sentence-tone is inseparable from speech even of the most lifeless
character. Each sentence has its own key, and the several parts of it
their own pitch. The tone rises when we ask a question, it falls when
we answer it, it reaches the “level” point of neutrality when we speak
in monotone. But there are dialects and languages in which monotone is
either acute or grave. “Thus in Scotch the rising tone is often employed
monotonously, not only in questions but also in answers and statements of
facts. In Glasgow Scotch the falling tone predominates.”[175] In French,
too, the rising tone is often used in making statements of fact.
Quite distinct from accent of pitch is accent of stress, though the
close connection between the two may be gathered from the fact that
in modern Greek the stress accent regularly answers to the acute and
circumflex of the ancient language. Much of this regularity, however,
may be due to the same pedantic revival which has resuscitated the
dialect of Plato and Thucydides and substituted it for the “modern
Greek” spoken half a century ago. Stress is the force with which
the different syllables of words are uttered, and increased force
is naturally accompanied by increased pitch. Stress, in fact,
corresponds to syllable-tone and word-tone, emphasis—the stress of a
sentence—corresponding to sentence-tone. Like pitch, it may be regarded
as either rising, level, or falling. Stress, however, differs from pitch
in its variability; there is no gradual fall, but a tendency “to sway to
and fro,” as Mr. Sweet expresses it. Rising stress may consequently be of
varying degrees of force and falling stress of weakness, level stress,
even in French, being practically unknown. Stress and pitch together give
to speech its rhythmic character, and make it the lyric utterance in
which man expresses his thoughts and his emotions. Where the rhythm is
regular we have poetry and song, where it is irregular the language of
ordinary prose. Stress is the great conservator of language; the chief
counterpoise to the action of phonetic decay. The accented syllable will
be preserved though all the other syllables by which it is surrounded may
disappear in pronunciation, just as the idea upon which emphasis is laid
will hold out successfully against the attacks of age and forgetfulness.
Winteler[176] has laid down the law that in accented syllables, liquids,
nasals, and spirants are always long after a short vowel if followed by a
consonant (e.g. _man̄ly_, Germ. _al̄t._)
The loss of the accent of pitch in modern English and the consequent
extension of the accent of stress have made us less observant of
_quantity_ than the grammarians of India or the poets of ancient Greece.
All syllables, however, may be classed as long, half-long, or short,
due to the duration of the force with which they are uttered. According
to Brücke, the duration needed for the production of a long vowel is to
that needed for the production of short vowels in the proportion of five
to three, but Sievers remarks that this only applies to the oratorical
pronunciation of modern literary German. In any case, the length of
the same vowel may vary according to circumstances; it is long, for
instance, in the English _sīz_ (_seize_), short in _sĭs_ (_cease_).
Several of the Scotch dialects possess no long vowels at all, while
in French most vowels are half-long, distinctly short accented vowels
being final, as in _oui_.[177] Like vowels, consonants, too, may be long
or short. In our own language final consonants are long after short
vowels (as _hill_), short after long vowels (as _heel_), and _l_ and
the nasals are lengthened before sonants (as _build_), shortened before
surds (as _built_). Short final consonants after short vowels make the
pronunciation appear clipped, as in German words like _mann_.
Accent has considerable influence upon quantity. On the one side short
vowels may be lengthened and pure vowels converted into diphthongs by
the accent falling upon them. This is partly the origin of the Sanskrit
_guṇa_ and _vṛiddhi_, according to which a simple _ă_ is raised to
_â_, an _ĭ_ to _ê_ (_ai_) and _ai_ (_âi_), and an _u_ to _o_ (_au_)
and _au_ (_âu_).[178] The lengthening of short vowels in Hebrew in a
“pause,” that is at the end of a sentence, is another example. In the
German dialects monosyllables which end in a consonant frequently have
their vowel changed into a diphthong by the accent, the original vowel
appearing again as soon as an additional syllable is added. In our
own English the short vowel of a monosyllable which ends in a sonant
frequently becomes half-long when accented (compare _fog_ with _fóggy_,
_god_ with _góddess_). On the other side, the absence of the accent may
bring with it a diminution of quantity. Thus a diphthong may be shortened
by being pronounced in the same period of time as is required for the
pronunciation of a short vowel, or may even be reduced to the short
vowel which lies midway between the two elements of which the diphthong
consists. A short vowel, again, may be reduced to a vocalic consonant
like the Slavonic _r_. Since much movement of the lips in speaking
implies an energetic enunciation, shortened syllables are naturally
pronounced with passive lips. To this fact we must ascribe the numerous
short syllables of modern cultivated English.
There is but little difference between a long or “strong” consonant and
a doubled one. In the first case, the position of the vocal organs for
pronouncing the consonant is retained with gradually decreasing force,
until it is suddenly shifted to the position needed for the following
vowel; in the second case it is shifted back again, when the force
required to produce it is half spent. Strictly speaking, therefore,
the consonant cannot be said to be doubled; there is simply a break or
pause in the utterance of it, the force necessary to produce it being
renewed before it has been fully exhausted. In English, French, German,
or Slavonic the double consonants have become long ones; to find them
still pronounced we must turn to Italian, Swedish, Finnic, or Magyàr.
Analogous to a double consonant is the combination of a sonant with a
surd, when assimilation does not take place, as in _has to do_ or _has
seen_. In Sanskrit and Greek aspirated letters could not be doubled,
Sanskrit permitting only _kkh_, _tth_, and _pph_, and Greek only κχ, τθ,
and πφ; hence it seems plain that there was either no glide or a glide
practically inaudible.
It is obvious that the combination of a consonant and a vowel admits
of an almost infinite series of variations according as the formation of
the one or other sound is made prominent in pronunciation. The consonant
may, as it were, swallow up the vowel; on the other hand, the vocal
organs may be shifted to form the vowel while they are still in the act
of forming the consonant. Hence arise _mouillé_ and labialized letters.
If the front part of the tongue be raised and the lips opened while a
consonant is being uttered, a palatalized or _mouillé_ letter is the
result, of which the Italian _gl_ and _gn_, the Spanish _ll_ and _ñ_, or
the Portuguese _lh_ and _nh_, may be regarded as examples. Still better
examples, according to Sievers, are combinations of consonants with an
original _i_ in many Slavonic languages (_e.g._ Russian _nikto_). Certain
consonants are incapable of being _mouillé_; gutturals, for instance,
in whose formation the back part of the tongue plays so prominent a
part can only be so by becoming palatals. Labialized sounds are those
in which the lips are rounded while the pronunciation of a consonant
is in process. Labials and gutturals show the same fondness for this
labialization or “rounding,” that the palatals and dentals do for
mouillation; and a comparison of the derived languages proves that the
primitive Aryan speech must have possessed a row of labialized or “velar”
gutturals—_kw_, _gw_, _ghw_—of which the Latin _qu_ and our own _cw_,
_qu_ are descendants. There is nothing to show that these velar gutturals
were ever developed out of the simple gutturals; so far back as we can go
in the history of Indo-European speech the two classes of guttural exist
side by side, and the groups of words containing them remain unallied
and unmixed. Γυνή and _queen_ (_quean_) must be separated from γένος,
_genitrix_, _kinder_, and other derivations of the root which we have
in the Sanskrit _janâmi_, the Greek γίγνομαι, γείνομαι, and the Latin
_gigno_; and the labialized _quies_ can have nothing to do with the Greek
κεῖμαι and κώμη (κύμη), our own _home_ and _ham-let_.[179] Both rounding
and mouillation may be combined, as in the Danish _kyst_, _pynte_, and
when occurring at the end of a word may frequently be explained from the
analogy of cases in which the word is followed by a syllable beginning
with _u_ and _i_. Such an explanation, however, is more likely to be true
of mouillation than of rounding; indeed, an _i_ or _y_ sound is very apt
to develop itself after consonants in affected pronunciation, as in the
English _kyind_, _duke_ (for _dook_), or the Greek ζορκάς (δyορκας) for
δορκάς and the Magyàr _ágy_, “bed.” Conversely a palatal _i_ or _y_ may
develop a dental sonant before it: thus the Italian _diacere_ comes from
the Latin _jacere_, the Low Latin _madius_ from _majus_,[180] and the
Greek ζειά (δyειά) and ζυγόν (δyυγόν) from _yava_ and _jugum_ (Sansk.
_yugam_). In these instances we may trace the influence of emphasis; the
parasitic letter is due to the attempt to speak with greater distinctness
and solemnity.
But whether it be emphasis or the other two causes of change described
in an earlier chapter, the pronunciation of sounds, like the meaning
they convey, is in a constant state of flux. Nowhere is the dogma of
Herakleitus, πάντα ῥεῖ, truer than in the history of speech. No two
people pronounce exactly alike, nor does the same person always pronounce
the same word or group of words in exactly the same way. Apart from the
changes undergone by the pronunciation of words according to the sounds
of the other words with which they may be associated, it is difficult to
pronounce the same word when uttered singly twice in precisely the same
way. The very effort to do so produces modification of the sound. Such
shades of difference in utterance, however, are imperceptible to any
but an unusually sensitive ear; it is only when the difference becomes
considerable that it attracts notice. It then constitutes what we may
term a variety, and such varieties we may hear sometimes from the lips of
a single individual, sometimes from the members of a family, sometimes
from those who live in daily contact and under the same conditions of
life. The faculty of imitation is strong within us, and a particular
pronunciation once started soon spreads, as it were instinctively,
amongst those who are much together. It has often been observed how like
the members of a family are to each other, not only in general appearance
and manner, but still more in the use of similar expressions and idioms
and the pronunciation of sounds. It is the same with schools, and to
a less degree with universities to which the students come with their
habits of phonetic utterance more or less formed: it has been said that
the handwriting betrays the school at which the man has been educated; it
may be said with equal justice that the mode of speaking does so too. In
a savage state of existence, where tribe-life and village-life are on the
one hand strict and intense, and the husband on the other hand sees but
little of his wife and children, the conditions favourable to the growth
of varieties in pronunciation are more numerous than among civilized men.
The language of the nursery becomes in time the language of the tribe.
This phonetic variety may be broadly stated as mainly due to differences
in the structure of the vocal organs. Putting aside imitation and
analogy, putting aside, too, all wilful and conscious changes of
pronunciation such as those enumerated on page 205, a particular sound
or a particular way of pronouncing a sound may be easier to one speaker
than to another. Very slight differences in the physical formation of the
organs of speech may produce the most important consequences. And when
a habit of pronunciation has once been fixed, it is difficult to alter
it. The child who is learning to speak will as readily learn Chinese
as English, the Japanese _r_ as the Northumberland _burr_; it is quite
another matter when the attempt to catch the sounds of a new language has
to be made in adult years.
Climate and food have, doubtless, an important effect in producing
changes in the formation of the vocal organs; but at present we have no
means of knowing the nature and extent of their influence. Professor
March remarks of the change of _i_ to _g_ in Anglo-Saxon,[181] that
“the movement (of consonants to vowels) is sometimes reversed, as when
a nation moves northward, or northern peoples mix with a vowel-speaking
race.” The Rev. W. Webster has drawn attention to the nasal twang
which distinguishes not only American English, but American Spanish,
Portuguese, and French as well; and which seems to be due to the dryness
and the extremes of the American climate, while he further suggests
climatic influences for the origin of the loss of the aspirate in Spanish
words like _hijo_, pronounced _ijo_, the Latin _filius_, which in the
fourteenth century still had _f_, and for the intensification of the
aspirate in the corresponding Gascon words. We are all well acquainted
with the hoarseness and roughness that exposure to the atmosphere lends
to the voice, and the exercise and strength that a mountainous region
gives to the lungs produce their effect in the vigour with which sounds
are uttered. In cold countries the respiration is accelerated, while the
air being denser contains a larger volume of oxygen.[182] The prognathism
of the lower and older races of men, again, must have considerably
modified their powers of utterance. “The lower jaw,” says Dr. Rolleston,
“which in every well-marked variety of the human species contributes very
importantly towards the making up of its distinctive character, was in
the brachycephalous Briton usually a very different bone from the lower
jaw of his Silurian predecessor.”[183] The strange fashions, too, which
lead the savage to mutilate and deform his person, have frequently a
very direct bearing upon phonology. Thus the loss and confusion of the
labials and the excessive nasalization in the languages of the natives of
the Pacific coast of America must be traced to the rings that are worn
through the nostrils and lips of the people.[184] The Otyi-herero of
South Africa is lisping in consequence of the custom of knocking out the
four lower teeth, and partly filing off the upper front ones, to which
also Professor Max Müller suggests the occurrence of the English, _th_
and _dh_ in the language may be due, and the Dinkas, who, like all the
negroes of the White River, extract the front teeth of the lower jaw,
have no sibilants.[185]
Whatever may be the causes which bring about varieties in pronunciation,
certain it is that they are as continually making their appearance as
varieties in the realm of natural history. Where they are unrestrained by
the conservative tendencies of literature and education, they soon spread
from the individual and the household and become species or dialects. The
dialect itself may in course of time assume so marked a character of its
own, and be so widely spoken as to be accounted a separate language; and
will stand to the varieties and species destined to grow out of it in the
relation of a genus to its species. But with this further development
phonology has little to do.
It is otherwise with the changes which result in the rise of a new
dialect. Comparative philology is based on the recognition that the
same word will be represented by different combinations of sounds in a
group of allied dialects or languages, and that each combination will
be governed by a fixed phonetic law. An English _h_, for example, will
answer to a Greek and Latin _k_, an English _t_ to a German _z_ and a
Sanskrit _d_. When once a sound is given in a language, we may know the
sounds which must correspond to it in the cognate languages. Now and
then, of course, subordinate laws will interfere with the working of the
general law; but unless such an interference can be proved, we must never
disregard the general law for the sake of an etymological comparison,
however tempting. To compare the Greek θεός with the Latin _deus_ and
the Sanskrit _devas_, rests upon almost as unstable a foundation as the
old derivation of _whole_ from ὅλος, and _call_ from καλέω.[186] We must
never forget that the laws of phonology are as undeviating in their
action as the laws of physical science, and where the spelling does not
mislead us will display themselves in every word of genuine growth. Even
the vowels cannot be changed and shifted arbitrarily; they, too, follow
definite laws of development, and though it is not yet possible to state
their equivalence in the several languages of a single family with the
same precision as in the case of the consonants, we may feel quite sure
that this is the fault of our ignorance and not of the facts themselves.
It was the great Grimm who, following in the wake of Rask, first
formulated the empiric law of that regular _Lautverschiebung_, or
shifting of sounds, in our Indo-European family of speech which has since
gone under his name. Since his time the law has been the subject of much
discussion and examination;[187] his statements have been amended and
amplified, and an endeavour made to apply the same law to the vowels that
has been applied to the consonants. The following table[188] exhibits the
equivalence of sounds in the Aryan family of speech:—
+---------+---------------+-------------+-----------+--------------+
| | Sanskrit. | Zend. | Greek. | Latin. |
+---------+---------------+-------------+-----------+--------------+
| K | ś (ç) | ç | κ | c |
| Kw }| k, ch, p | k, ch, p | κ, π, τ | qu, c, v |
| (K²) }| | | | |
| G | j, sh | z, sh | γ | g |
| Gw }| g, j, k | g, j, zh, k | β, γ[189] | [g]v, b |
| (G²) }| | | | |
| G H | h | z | χ | h, g |
| G Hw }| [g] h | g, j, zh | χ, φ | v, gv, g |
| (G H²) }| | | | |
| T | t | t | τ | t |
| D | d | d | δ | d, l |
| D H | [d] h | d | θ | f, d, b[190] |
| P | p | p | π | p |
| B | b | b? | β | b |
| B H | [b] h | b | φ | f, b |
| N G | ṅ | ñ | γ | ng |
| N | n | n | ν | n |
| M | m | m | μ | m |
| R | r, l | r | ρ, λ | r, l |
| Y | y | y | y, ζ, δ | j |
| V | v | v | ϝ, υ, ῾ | v |
| S | s | h, s | σ, ῾ | s, r |
| A | a | a | ε | ĕ |
| A² | â, a | — | ο | ŏ, ĕ |
| A³ | a, i, u, î, û | — | α, ο | a, o |
| Â | â | â | ᾱ, ω | ā, ō |
| I | i | i | ῑ | i |
| U | u | u | ῠ | u, o, i |
+---------+---------------+-------------+-----------+--------------+
+---------+---------------+-------------+-----------+--------------+
| | Oscan and | Gothic. | English. | Modern High |
| | Umbrian. | | | German. |
+---------+---------------+-------------+-----------+--------------+
| K | k | h, g | h, g | h, g |
| Kw }| p | hv, f(p), h | wh, f | w, f |
| (K²) }| | | | |
| G | g | k | k, ch | k, ch |
| Gw }| b | kv | qu, c | qu, k |
| (G²) }| | | | |
| G H | h | g | g, y | g |
| G Hw }| ? | g, v? | g, w? | g, w? |
| (G H²) }| | | | |
| T | t | th, d | d, th | d, t |
| D | d | t | t | z, ss, sz |
| D H | f | d | d | t, th |
| P | p | f, b | f, b | f, b |
| B | b | p? | p? | pf?, f? |
| B H | f | b | b | b |
| N G | ng | ng | ng | ng |
| N | n | n | n | n |
| M | m | m | m | m |
| R | r, l | r, l | r, l | r, l |
| Y | j | j | y | j |
| V | v | v | w | w |
| S | s, r, z | s, z | s, r | s, r |
| A | e | e | — | — |
| A² | — | — | — | — |
| A³ | — | a | — | — |
| Â | — | — | — | — |
| I | i | i | — | — |
| U | u | u, au | — | — |
+---------+---------------+-------------+-----------+--------------+
+---------+-------------+-----------+----------+--------+------------+
| | Lithuanian. | Church | Gaulish. | Old | Old |
| | | Slavonic. | | Irish. | Welsh. |
+---------+-------------+-----------+----------+--------+------------+
| K | sz | s | c | c, ch | c |
| Kw }| k, p | k, p | p | c, ch | p |
| (K²) }| | | | | |
| G | ż | z | g | g | g |
| Gw }| g | g | b? | b, m? | b, m? |
| (G²) }| | | | | |
| G H | z | z | g | g | g |
| G Hw }| g | g | b? | b | b |
| (G H²) }| | | | | |
| T | t | t | t | t, th | t |
| D | d | d | d | d | d |
| D H | d | d | d | d | d |
| P | p | p | ... | ... | ...[191] |
| B | b | b | b | b, m | b, m |
| B H | b | b | b | b, m | b, m |
| N G | ng | -n | ng | ng | ng |
| N | n | n, -n | n | n | n |
| M | m | m, -n | m | m, b | m, b |
| R | r, l | r, l | r, l | r, l | r, l |
| Y | j | j | j | ... | j, ddj, dd |
| V | v | v | v | f, b | gu, u |
| S | s | s, ch | s | s | h |
| A | e | e | — | — | — |
| A² | o, à | o | — | — | — |
| A³ | a | a | — | — | — |
| Â | — | — | — | — | — |
| I | i | i | — | — | — |
| U | u | u, o, ŭ | — | — | — |
+---------+-------------+-----------+----------+--------+------------+
Some of the changes of sound recorded in the above table are as old as
the undivided Aryan speech itself. They go back to the dialects that
existed in the earliest period of which our materials allow us to know.
Instead of clinging, with Fick, to a genealogical tree, and deriving the
Aryan languages of Europe and Asia from two parent-stems, Western and
Eastern Aryan, and these again from a single _Ursprache_ or primitive
speech, it is better to follow J. Schmidt in tracing the later languages
to co-existent dialects, which by the loss or absorption of intermediate
dialects and the migration of the speakers became more and more distinct
and divergent one from the other. It is, of course, quite possible that
the speakers of the most western of these dialects moved across the
Ural range into Europe in a compact body, and there settled for a while
in a district westward of a line drawn from Königsberg to the Crimea,
where the beech grew, and that it was from this second home of the
Aryan race that the waves of European emigrants successively broke off.
Certainly Professor Fick seems to have shown the common possession of
certain phonetic peculiarities, such as the vowel _e_, by the Western as
distinguished from the Eastern Aryans, and the Eastern or Indic branch of
the family clearly once formed a single whole which subsequently divided
into Iranian and Hindu. Unfortunately the position of Armenian and the
allied dialects is still a matter of doubt; and there are scholars who
would regard them as a link between the European and the Asiatic sections
of the Aryan group. But Fick labours hard, and apparently with success,
to prove that the Aryan dialects of Asia Minor, such as we know them
from glosses and inscriptions, belonged to the European, not the Asiatic
section, while Armenian, on the other side, is an Iranian tongue. Fick’s
conclusion is confirmed by the evidence of the cuneiform inscriptions.
Up to the eighth century B.C. Armenia was still inhabited by tribes
who spoke non-Aryan languages, and it was only a century previously
that the Medes had first forced their way into the country regarded by
the agglutinative Accadians as the cradle of their race, but which was
afterwards to be the seat of the Aryan Medes. Eastward of the Halys there
was nothing Aryan until long after the occupation of Armenia by the
new-comers.