It has been seen that the letter H is a signal to aspirate. The term
_mute_, _otiose_ or SILENT H, implies that the signal means nothing, is
useless, and is intended to be disregarded; that it is a false beacon,
an orthographical encumbrance, and a trap for the unwary. Lumber of this
sort is to be found in certain words, but in which ones, has always been
a profound mystery from the fact of it having been so often explained;
and information was unobtainable, by reason of a multiplicity of
informants. Where the H is silent, has been difficult to determine; why
the H is silent, cannot be determined at all. This much has long been
divulged; it is silent in _hour_, _honour_, _honest_, _heir_, and most
of their formatives; the rest is darkness—in the dictionaries. On no
point of English pronunciation have authorities more notoriously
disagreed than on that of words beginning with H; and if any one wishes
to see the fathers of English Orthoepy at loggerheads, or the Doctors of
Modern English Pronunciation in a muddle, let him glance at the H
section of their several dictionaries.
Be it, however, remembered that the work of the writer of pronouncing
dictionaries is one of extreme difficulty, and that his short-comings
are often of the most excusable kind to be met with in the whole field
of literature. The etymologist has scientific fact to deal with; the
lexicographer is by tacit consent, and in virtue of that fiction of
fictions “etymological conservation,” allowed, to some extent, to
jurisdict or appeal to precedent in matters of orthography; but the
professional orthoepist is expected to catch and register the passing
sound of a nation’s speech. There is no discretionary power attached to
his office; his duty is to discover who are representative speakers
among his contemporaries, and—by a sort of arithmetical process—to
determine what pronunciation is _prevalent_ among them. Hence his entire
task is one of appalling magnitude. But he has discovered a meretricious
means of lightening his labours, which consists in referring to his
predecessors in cases of extra uncertainty; the result frequently being
that he gives as modern an obsolete pronunciation. It is evident that
several words in which the silent H is concerned have undergone this
treatment.
In the very good old times, ere spelling-books had created “bad
spellers,” every writer was, in a small way, a phonographer; that is, he
wrote words as he heard them pronounced. The system did not favour
uniformity of spelling, but resulted in most words being written in two
or three different ways, some in fifteen, or even twenty. Instead of
animadverting on the subject of these discrepancies, or attributing them
to the undetermined value and inadequate supply of alphabetical symbols,
we may better serve our present purpose by simply noticing that it was
customary for early scribes to insert the letter H in some words wherein
it is now generally supposed to have been silent. We see at once that
the facts of the case militate against this modern belief in ancient
silent H’s. For, if the majority of these early penmen, whose minds were
neither in an appreciable degree biassed by precedent, nor haunted by
the forms of orthographical bogies, habitually inserted an H, it is
evident that the letter was intended to have a phonetic significance,
and had very probably a strong phonetic value. The same conclusions have
been arrived at by Mr Ellis, who sees no reason for believing that H was
not audible in _honor_, _honest_, and _hour_ in the time of Chaucer—say
1400. Collateral evidence in support of Mr Ellis’s views is to be found
in the fact of the doubtful words occurring in alliterative verses of an
early date; and of their occurring in such a manner as to allow of the
supposition of their H’s being implicated in the alliterations as, what
are termed by Professor Skeat, “rime-letters.”
In the age of Chaucer (and, in diminishing degrees, down to our own
day), it was customary to drop the H’s of short, unaccented syllables in
poetry, provided that these were not placed in a position immediately
succeeding a metrical pause. But, as far as the writer is aware, the
sixteenth century is the earliest that has furnished a record of any
words having been habitually written with H’s and pronounced without
them. Palsgrave, in 1530, gave _honest_, _honour_, _habundance_, and
_habitation_ as having each an otiose H. Salesbury (1547), in his Welsh
Dictionary, says that H is held silent in “French and Englysh, in such
wordes as be derived out of Latyne, as these: _honest_, _habitation_,
_humble_, _habit_, _honeste_, _honoure_, _exhibition_, and
_prohibition_;” whereas he aspirates it in _h_umour. Gill (1621) adds
_hour_ and _hyssop_ as having a mute H; and aspirates in _h_erb, _h_eir,
and _h_umbleness. Jones (1701) makes it mute in _swine-herd_, _Heber_,
_Hebrew_, _hecatomb_, _hedge_, _Hellen_, _herb_, _hermit_, and some
others. Smart (1836) reduced the whole list of words with a silent H to
_heir_, _honest_, _honour_, _hostler_, _hour_, _humble_, and _humour_;
and modern usage consents to a still greater reduction.
The suppression of H’s has been observed to have been chiefly exercised
in words coming to us from the Latin, through the French language. It
seems that Salesbury, quoted above, regarded this, or something like it,
as having been a rule. But we find records of some words of neither
French nor Latin origin having also had silent H’s assigned to them; and
we have the still more important fact that the Franco-latin words in
which the H is aspirated are greatly in excess of those in which it ever
was silent—the latter really constituting a very insignificant minority.
In the third line of _The Vision of William_,
In _h_abite as an _h_ermit un_h_oly of workës,
we have convincing proof that Langland (1332–1400?) had no regard for
the etymology of his Aspirates. Certainly, French words of Latin origin
have constantly taken the aspirate when their etymology was in the least
obscure. Thus, _hearse_ (which most people do not know is French, and
still less do they think it represents the Latin [acc.], _hirpicem_[8])
has always retained its Aspirate. Moreover, it were one thing to be able
to prove that a certain pronunciation would be etymologically correct,
and another to show that the pronunciation of a language is corrected by
etymology. We are, in fact, at liberty to regard the English silent H,
as being practically devoid of active etymological sponsors.
Taken collectively, these different data very strongly suggest the idea
of silent H’s having been, if not born of, at least very assiduously
fostered, and promoted with almost paternal solicitude, by the judgment
or fancy of theoretically-inclined orthoepists. If, on the other hand,
the early orthoepists were really honest in their pretensions to
chronicle the actual pronunciation of their day, the result of their
endeavours still remains open to the objection of inaccuracy, by reason
of the special difficulty they will have experienced in recognizing a
standard to go by. Nothing can, now-a-days, screen them from a suspicion
of having exercised their powers of imagination equally with those of
observation; nor can their partial disagreements exonerate them from the
charge of a traditionary collusion in cases of extra perplexity. If
asked, with what weight this same charge might be brought to bear on our
more recent compilers of “modern pronouncing dictionaries,” the writer
of the present treatise would, under the plea of _coram non judice_,
take refuge from the onus of pronouncing an invidious decision. But if
asked why the comparatively modern dictionaries quoted on the opposite
sheet, are, in some instances, so flagrantly at variance with the best
modern usage with regard to pronunciation, he would unhesitatingly reply
that they are so chiefly out of deference to the opinions of the
gentleman who wrote the first complete pronouncing dictionary and lived
over a hundred years ago.