THE PRONUNCIATION OF ENGLISH BY FOREIGNERS J. BURCH, M.A., D.Sc, OXON,, F.R.S. 3s, net The Pronunciation of English by Foreigners. Ube 5tufc of JEndlisb in Women Stufcents, Horbam Dall. Lectures in the English Language and Literature by University Lecturers and Tutors. An Examination three times a year at the end of each term, conducted by the Association for the Education of Women in Oxford. A Library in Norham Hall for the use of Resident Students. Dates of commencement and all particulars may be obtained from Mrs. CONSTANCE E. BURCH, Norham Hall, Oxford. A Vacation Course lasting four weeks is held during the month of July. The Pronunciation of English by Foreigners. A Course of Lectures to the Students of Norham Hall on the Physiology of Speech. BY GEORGE J. BURCH, M.A., D.Sc. Oxon., F.R.S. ALDEN & CO. LTD., BOCARDO PRESS. LONDON : SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT & Co. LTD. 1911 Copyright 1911 by George J. Burch. TO MY DEAR WIFE, The Principal of Norham Hall, 261457 PREFACE. THESE lectures, under the title of "The Physiology of Speech," have formed part of the Courses for the Study of English in Oxford by Foreign Women Students in which an examination is held at the end of each term. I have often been asked by students to print them, and now do so in the hope that thereby their usefulness may be increased. However well a language may be learnt, those whose native tongue it is can almost always detect slight differ- ences of pronunciation which constitute what is called a " foreign accent." Frequently it is possible to tell what country the speaker comes from by the characteristics of this foreign accent. My opportunities of collecting material relating to this subject have been exceptionally good. After the lectures the students were taken in classes of twelve, where each in turn read from a book or went through the exercises described in the lecture, and any peculiarities of pronun- ciation were noted down from week to week, a separate sheet of the class-register being devoted to each student. These records, from 1900, when I began the system, until now, have been carefully collated and classified by towns, and the towns by districts, and districts by countries, and the results incorporated in this book. Omitting on the one hand those whose foreign accent was negligible, and on the other hand those who through travelling about or through living long in other lands could not be considered to represent the characteristic pronun- viii Preface. elation of any particular district, there remained the records of 1305 people which have been utilized in writing this book. Merely accidental mistakes have been omitted, and so also have been the faults of beginners, for the simple reason that as all the lectures and classes are given in English, beginners do not come to these courses. The differences of pronunciation are due mainly to the fact which is of great scientific interest that each nation has its own way of managing the muscles that control the organs of speech, with the result that although the sounds produced may seem the same, they are not identical, and under certain circumstances the differences are manifest. I have tried to explain these differences, and to point out how they may be remedied. I have not used the phonetic alphabet, because I hold that the niceties of pronunciation of any language can only be acquired by imitating people who pronounce it properly. This book assumes that the reader will either come to England or learn of some one who has been in England. In dealing for instance with the vowels, the teacher will pronounce, and hear the student pronounce, the list of words given in connection with each vowel sound, until he is satisfied that it has been correctly acquired. In those lists will be found the type-words used in all the chief English pronouncing dictionaries, so that having acquired a knowledge of the sound, the student can get the correct pronunciation of any word in the language from any one of these dictionaries. The small numbers above the vowels used in spelling the mistakes of pronunciation relate to these lists of vowel- sounds. They express simply the order in which those sounds were treated in the lectures, and are intended to enable the student to identify the sound which each mistake has to an English ear. Preface. ix The diagrams have been purposely kept simple so that they may be copied on the blackboard. Some of the quaint sentences given as illustrations will remind old students of their own experiences. They will recognize the traps set to catch them in one fault while they were thinking of another. They will recall the strenuous efforts in our cosmopolitan classes, of students of one country to surmount the difficulties peculiar to their own nation, and the satisfaction with which they pronounced things easy to themselves but impossibly difficult to their next neighbours from another land. And with the memories aroused by the printed words will come the memories of the ear and of the eye, recalling the very voices and faces of those who sat around the table with us. And they will seem to hear once more the tones of the English voice, as I have heard again their voices in going through the old class records. G. J. B. CONTENTS. I. THE PHYSIOLOGY OF SPEECH : CONSONANTS - II- HI. IV. V. EXERCISES VI. NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS VII. ON BREATHING VIII. ACCENTS EXAMPLES FOR PRACTICE FRICATIVES VOWELS - GLIDES - - 12 - 32 46 53 59 - 81 - 9i - 102 PRONUNCIATION SIGNS USED IN THIS BOOK facing p. i PRONUNCIATION SIGNS USED IN THIS BOOK. SH = sherry CH = cherry ZH = usual J=jam r = broom R = tomoRRow H = guttural r Tff-tMn TH = this G = go (") = glottal catch sing-er = singer fing-ger = finger Fin-gal = Fingal gin-jer = ginger a 1 = father a 2 = fall a 3 = fat a 4 = fate a 5 = hare e 1 = me e 2 = men i^sir 1 2 = pit 1 3 = mine o 1 = not 00 = fool u 1 == turn u 2 = but u 3 = bull u 4 = tube ou = out 01 = oil THE PRONUNCIATION OF ENGLISH. LECTURE I. THE PHYSIOLOGY OF SPEECH : CONSONANTS. ANATOMY describes the structure of the body : Physiology seeks to explain the manner of its working : and as it is impossible to understand the working of a machine without knowing something of its mechanism, it is necessary to begin the study of the Physiology of Speech with the Anatomy of the Speech Organs. These may be divided into (j ) Wind-supplying, (2) Sound- producing, (3) Sound-modifying apparatus. WIND-SUPPLYING APPARATUS. Under the first head we note an important fact, viz. : that the same organ as is so often the case in living creatures serves two purposes : the lungs, which supply breath without which the voice is silent, convey also to the blood oxygen without which the fire of life goes out. And because we need not always speak but must con- tinually breathe, the voice is under the control of the will, but the' breathing is regulated automatically. We can increase, diminish, or interrupt it, but only for a time, and in a very few seconds we become conscious of a necessity for taking breath overmastering the strongest will. The proper management of the breath is as important as the correct pronunciation of the words, and will be dealt with in a later lecture. B 2 The Pronunciation of English. Air is conveyed to and from the lungs by the wind-pipe. Behind the wind-pipe lies the oesophagus or gullet through which food passes to the stomach. Note the difference. We must always breathe, but it is quite unnecessary to be always eating. Accordingly the gullet is a soft collapsible tube, the sides of which are usually pressed together, but the wind-pipe is stiffened and jointed, so that it can be bent, but will not squeeze flat. Imagine a series of napkin-rings joined with a thin rubber tube, and you have something not unlike the wind-pipe. You can feel the joints of it by passing the finger tips up and down the lower part of the throat. SOUND-PRODUCING APPARATUS. At the upper end of the wind-pipe you will feel a lump. Try to swallow it moves up and down but returns to its old place, as if it were something that had stuck in your throat. That is why in every language of Europe it is known as the Adam's Apple the larynx. In the larynx are the organs of sound, the vocal cords stimm bander which vibrate when the breath is forced between them much in the same way as the lips vibrate in blowing a trumpet. Place the middle- and fore-fingers lightly against the larynx, one on each side of the pro- jecting edge of it, and sing a continuous note of low pitch : you will feel the vibration of the vocal cords very distinctly when you have found the proper position for the fingers. SOUND-MODIFYING APPARATUS. There are two ways by which the breath can escape when it has left the larynx by the mouth and by the nose. Both are used in speech, and their relative position and size, with the organs connected with them, are shown in Figs, i and 2, which represent diagrammatically a section through the The Physiology of Speech* 3 middle of the head. In Fig. i the passage through the nose is closed by the uvula. In Fig. 2 it is left open. Fig. 3 shows what you may see for yourselves. Stand with your back to the window and by means of a hand-glass, reflect sunlight into your open mouth. You will note the following organs of speech : the lips, upper and lower; the teeth, principally the upper, for it makes very little difference to our pronunciation if a lower tooth comes out ; and the tongue. Most of you will see little else than the tongue, or if you draw breath, the uvula, like a little tongue hanging tip downwards at the upper part of the back of the throat. The passage to the nose lies behind the uvula. Probably most people have had the very unpleasant experience of an involuntary laugh while in the act of drinking, with the result that the liquid instead of being swallowed " went the wrong way " got up into the nose, and made you cough. That was because the uvula failed for a moment in its duty of closing the passage to the nose while you swallow. The equally unpleasant affection called a hiccough is due to the uvula closing the passage when it is not wanted to do so. (Hiccough, by the way, is an excellent illustration of a word spelt in one way and pronounced in another.) The Soft Palate. Round about the uvula the tissues are soft, they can be drawn apart showing the back of the throat or brought forward against the tongue like a pair of curtains. The upper part, the roof of the mouth at the back, is seen to be flexible. That is the soft palate. But you must learn to see more than this. When the doctor looks at your throat he presses down the tongue with the handle of a spoon. I want you to put the back of your tongue down without a spoon. You do it many times The Pronunciation of English. FIG. i. THE ORGANS OF SPEKCH. A, the hard palate. B, the soft palate ending in the uvula. C, the epiglottis. D, the gullet. E, the wind-pipe. F, the larynx, or "Adam's apple." G, the vocal cords. The uvula is pressed against the back of the throat, as in pronouncing B, D, etc., and most of the vowels, so that the breath cannot escape through the nose. The Physiology of Speech; FIG. 2. The same as Fig. I, but the uvula is drawn away from the back of the throat, leaving the breath free to escape through the nose, as in pronouncing M, N, NG, and five of the vowels. 6 The Pronunciation of English. a day with your mouth shut, but you do not know how it is done your will has not learnt how to give that order separately. And that is only a single instance out of many connected with pronunciation. The great difficulty in the way of your making the English sounds as the English make them lies in the fact that you make the sounds of your own language without knowing how you produce them, and that you Fir, 3. Open mouth, showing the soft palate and uvula. The tongue hides the lower part of the throat. have not learnt to put your tongue and the other organs of articulation in a given position by the power of your will. You shall learn this first simple exercise of depressing the back of the tongue but you will perhaps prefer to make the attempt in solitude. Open your mouth, look in the glass as before, but leaning your head a little forward, and pretend for one moment that you are going to be sick. The back of your tongue will go down at once just for that moment to a surprising extent. Do not pretend" too The Physiology of Speech. 7 often nor too long ! Try again next day, and if you per- severe you will soon be able to depress the back of your tongue without associating any unpleasant ideas with the action, so long as you are looking at it in the glass. And after still further practice you will be able to do so without even looking at it. When you have done this, you will have learnt how to open your mouth properly for speaking or singing in a large room. One great reason why inexperienced teachers become FIG. 4. Open mouth, with the back of the tongue depressed, showing the epiglottis. hoarse and lose their voices after teaching a little while is that they do not use the full volume of the mouth cavity in speaking, but keep the back of the tongue high up and employ only the front of the mouth. If you can show your throat down to the epiglottis you will be able to teach or lecture as long as you can make any sound with your vocal cords, and you will not get hoarse. Fig. 4 shows what you will be able to see. 8 The Pronunciation of English. The Epiglottis. Far down in the throat, at the base of the tongue, is what looks like the tip of another tongue, pointing upwards. That is the epiglottis. It serves to protect the larynx from the trickling in of liquids, which would cause most violent coughing. It is of little, if any, use in articulate speech, at any rate of Europeans. Its main interest lies in the fact that if you can show it, in your own throat, you have mastered the great problem of how to hold the mouth in speaking. CONSONANTS. In making the following sounds, the passage to the nose is closed by the uvula and soft palate, as in Fig. i. B AND P. The simplest of the articulate sounds is that of the letter B. Sound the vocal cords, preferably with the vowel e, and while doing so, close the lips so as to stop the passage of the breath, and then open them again. The sound produced is eb-be. By making it very slowly and with some force, with the fingers touching the larynx, it is easy to recognize that the vocal cords continue to vibrate after the lips are closed till the pressure of air in the mouth equals the pressure in the lungs. Also that when the lips open again there is a slight but unmistakable explosive sound made by them in addition to the sound of the vocal cords. This same action of the lips produces, when the vocal cords do not vibrate, the sound of the letter P. To prove this, take the two words 'bob' and 'pop,' and whisper them over and over again in any order. A person The Physiology of Speech: Consonants. 9 at a little distance will be unable to distinguish one from the other. The next experiment needs a little practice, but is worth practising. Place the two fingers lightly against the larynx as already described, and say slowly first ' bobobob ' and then * popopop.' The vibration will persist throughout for ' bobobob,' but will cease for the fraction of a second at every p in 1 popopop.' Now consider for how short a time it ceases. Perhaps the tenth part of a syllable, and we speak five syllables a iA/ LwwvJ U/l/wJ UA, - . P....O P-- -o-- -?- - - /win AM/] A/W] 'ww VA/WVV l/wwu U/b . . - <8 - . . . . -jP- - . 3 FIG. 5. Diagram showing how the vibrations cease during the pronunciation of the letter P. second. Say that for the fiftieth of a second the sound must cease to make the difference between B and P. What wonder that so many people from various foreign parts sound the one in place of the other! And yet the fault is easily corrected when once it has been pointed out. Apart from this the action that produces the sound of B is so simple that it is the same in most European languages. In modern Greek the lips are not closed, and the sound resembles that of V. During the last twenty years or so there has arisen a fashion, mainly among girls' schools of the ' Papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes, and prism' order, of pronouncing B and P by pressing the lower lip against the upper teeth. This is to be avoided as a foolish and probably temporary 'fad.' io The Pronunciation of English* D AND T. The tongue is fitted to the line of the upper teeth both in front and at the sides, so as completely to stop the passage of the breath. If any teeth are absent, at that place the tongue is raised so as to stop the gap. As with the letter ,B the vocal cords can be felt vibrating until the pressure of air in the mouth reaches a maximum. The tip of the tongue, which up to that moment has been pressed with some force against the front teeth, or the gums, is then suddenly drawn back, and the air escapes with the characteristic sound. If the vocal cords do not vibrate, the same action produces the letter T. There is greater variety possible in the pronunciation of D and T, because the tip of the tongue can be applied near the edge of the teeth, or near the gums, and it can be made sharp-edged or rounded. The D of Ireland and the D of Spain differ very noticeably from the normal European D. G, K, AND QU. If the passage of the breath is stopped by the tongue without using the tip or edge of it, we get the sound of the hard G, or if the vocal cords are silent, of K. And in this case, considerable variety is possible. Either the middle of the tongue may be pressed against the roof of the mouth, the hard palate, or the back of the tongue and the soft palate may be brought into contact. By the first method we produce the sound of G in go or egg, or of K in cock or key. By the second method we make the sound of Qu. The mispronunciation of Q is one of the commonest errors of a foreign accent. An excellent test sentence is the following : " A quite quiet queen." The Physiology of Speech: Consonants. n A great many foreigners both from Teutonic and from Scandinavian countries substitute K for Qu in all these words that is to say they press the middle of the tongue against the hard palate ; and, more than that, a certain percentage, especially among those who use the modified vowels, use the front pf the tongue just short of the tip, and press it against the front of the hard palate. Thus the word queen becomes ko-een or k'6-een. An Englishman speaking these words forcibly as before a large audience sounds the \V after the Q. The foreigner leaves this out, besides substituting K for Q. And in the case of those who use the front of the tongue instead of the middle, the K itself is thin and has, to use an idiomatic expression, a ' mincing ' sound. Yet another point is illustrated by this sentence. The word quite has one syllable and quiet has two, but a great many foreigners fail to notice this and pronounce both words alike. And though they may be quite aware of the difference, yet when the attention is concentrated on the pronunciation of the Q they forget the two syllables of qui-et and pronounce it in one. Now we have not truly learnt a thing until we can do it without thinking, and therefore can do it while thinking of something else. For this reason almost every test sentence throughout this book contains a trap for the unwary, that is to say a difficulty unconnected with the point under discussion, but relating to something previously dealt with. These traps are left purposely concealed, but any one who studies the book can find them, and old students will have lively recollections of escaping or being caught by them in class. N.B. The soft G, as in generous and engine, is classed among the Fricatives, and dealt with in the next lecture. It is here represented by the letter J. 12 LECTURE II. THE PHYSIOLOGY OF SPEECH : FRICATIVES. WE now pass to the discussion of the fricatives^ or sounds produced by the passage of the breath through a constricted aperture. S. Fie;. 6. Position of tongue during S and Z. Of these the simplest is S (see Fig. 6). Briefly it may be described as the sound of a number of very shrill whistles giving different notes blown together. The exact way in which the tongue- is held to produce it depends very much on the teeth in fact the loss of a front tooth produces a lisp until the loser has learned to accommodate the tongue-action to the new state of things The Physiology of Speech: Fricatives. 13 but the normal position is as follows. The edge of the tip of the tongue is placed close behind the front teeth, the tongue itself being held slightly hollow like a trough, so that there is a narrow passage for the breath over the edge of the tongue in the middle, and down between it and the front teeth. Now the quality of the S depends on the position of the tongue. If it is too near the edge of the teeth, the S will be thin and hard, and though quite distinct when you are close to the speaker, will be perfectly inaudible at a little distance. People from some parts of France sound the S FIG. 7. Position of tongue during SH and ZH or CH and J. in this manner, and one occasionally meets with it in Germany and the Scandinavian countries. The fault is best cured by letting the pupil read standing at the other end of the room, and listening for the initial and terminal S. Thus smile will be heard as mile, and books as book. Should the opportunity offer of getting close to a great public speaker while he is addressing an audience of say i4 The Pronunciation of English* 5,000 or more, he will be found to hiss the S much more strongly than he would in conversation or in a small room. The Jew of the time of Dickens went to the other extreme and thickened the S till it became SH. I do not think this is so common as it used to be. Z. Hum and hiss at the same time, and you have the sound of Z. Now quite a number of people, if told to hum while they hiss, cannot do it until you explain that it makes the sound of Z. This is another illustration of what has been already pointed out, viz. that many people have never learnt to control the movements of the voice organs by the will. It is an excellent thing to practise doing so. SH (see Fig. 7). If the edge of the tip of the tongue is placed farther up against the gums instead of the teeth the sound thickens until instead of S we have SH. And this, if we hum, becomes what ought logically to be ZH but is in fact the soft French J. It does not occur at the beginning of any English word, the English J and also the soft G commencing with an explosive sound as if it were DZH. The letter S in 'usual' has the sound of ZH. CH has a sound like TSH. R (see Fig. 8). There are three kinds of R in the English language the whispered burr, which we shall denote by r, the voiced burr, represented by r, and the trilled R. To make the whispered burr r, first sound the letter S, then move the tongue upwards and back on to the gums until the sound becomes SH. Continue the movement until the edge of the tongue is as far back as you can get it, and blow. This will give the sound of r. The Physiology of Speech': Fricatives. Take the following words : S, Z Sue* Zoo b Sh, Zh Shoe Usual r r true drive promise broom crow grow It will be observed that after a whispered consonant the r is whispered, but after a voiced consonant it is voiced. FIG. 8. Position of tongue during r. The relation of the burr (r) to the letters SH and S has been already pointed out. It has really nothing to do with the trill (R) and it is unfortunate that letters physiologically so different should go by the same name, their only con- nection being that linguistically they are interchangeable. As a rule it is easier to teach the burr (r) than the trill (R). THE BURR (r) AND (r). One method which has often proved successful is to limagine that a crumb has stuck to the roof of the mouth Short for Susan. b The Londoner's name for the Zoological Gardens. 1 6 The Pronunciation of English, and to try to lick it off with the tip of the tongue. While doing so blow and hum. This will produce the sound of r, if you have imagined the crumb to be just as far back as the tip of the tongue can reach. The three positions of the tongue are used in saying the words "This shrill sound" an excellent exercise for teaching the formation of the English r. The tongue sweeps up and backwards with a continuous motion in passing from S to SH, and to r. The reason so many foreigners have difficulties with the English r and r is that they employ in their own language a sound which not one Englishman in twenty can produce the guttural H which for convenience we will denote by the Gothic letter. To make this, the tongue is kept back almost in the position for Q, the soft palate and uvula vibrating against the tongue. In reality, the English trilled R and the German guttural H are two entirely different letters, only distantly resembling one another in sound. It is well to realize that the error is as great when the guttural H is used in English as that of Bret Harte's Chinaman who says "all litee " when he means "all right." THE TRILL (R). The English trilled R is made by a vibration of the front part of the tongue against the gums and front teeth. The following plan is often successful with those who find it difficult. Acquire first a moderate facility with the burr. Whisper several times the word ' tree,' to get the tongue into the r position. Then say, louder and louder, ah-rr, ah-rrr, ah-B-R-R-R, making the B very forcibly. The sudden explosion of the breath for the letter B will jerk the tongue forward against the teeth, and the proba- bility is it will rebound once or twice. If it does, it is The Physiology of Speech: Fricatives. 17 merely a matter of a few days' practice to learn the trill. But it is not completely learnt until you can take a deep breath and trill the R continuously till it is exhausted, and until you can do this not only with the vocal cords vibrating but with them silent, or alternately sounding and silent, four or five times in succession with a single breath. If while practising the R the learner reverts accidentally to the H, it is better to do something else for a while, otherwise a kind of nervousness comes on which renders further practice useless. This is very generally the case with those muscular movements not completely controlled by the will. The burr should always be learnt first many English people scarcely ever use the trill. But it is not enough to be able to sound the r in one or two words. A great deal depends on the consonant which precedes and the vowel which follows it. ' Tree ' is generally found to be the easiest word, especially if whispered softly. The reason is that both for the T and for the ee sound, the tongue is kept well forward, so that it would entail more effort to put it into the position for 23. 1 Grow ' is much more difficult, because the tongue is already in the guttural position ; but the most troublesome consonant is P probably because for this letter the front part of the tongue is kept low. Many foreigners are quite unable to say ' promise,' which becomes with them ' p'omise.' The difficulty is best approached by easy stages, thus : Tree, previous, practice, prawn, pronoun, proof, promise. The first three vowels make the r much easier to acquire. A mistake, which is to be deprecated as an error in teaching^ consists in the substitution of D for R in such words as ' to-morrow,' which is pronounced * to-moddow.' c 1 8 The Pronunciation of English. If the trilled R cannot be acquired it is quite sufficient to us3 the burr, about which there should be no difficulty. Personally, I would rather hear the guttural H than substitute a D for the English R. N.B. The English Police Station test for drunkenness is to make a man say " Truly rural truly rural." It is more difficult than it looks. *' Round the rugged rocks the ragged rascal ran " is another well-known sentence. F AND V. In order to speak a language without a foreign accent; it is not enough to pronounce the component letters and syllables so as to sound as when spoken by natives : they must be produced in the same way. Otherwise differences are sure to occur when these sounds follow one another in rapid speech. There is no more striking illustration of this than the Scandinavian F and V. The F is made by resting the upper teeth against the inner edge of the lower lip and blowing. V is made in the same way, but the vocal cords vibrate, whereas in F they are silent. But while the Englishman raises his upper lip well above the middle of the teeth, the Scandinavian lets his drop till it almost touches the lower lip. [See Fig. 9 and Fig. 10.] This makes no difference to the sound taken by itself. But suppose a sentence such as "Are you fond of music ? " The lips must close for the M, and the Scandinavian has them already so nearly closed that there is nothing left for him to do. He fuses the two sounds into one, and says *' Are you fond o' music ? " The same thing occurs before B or P, and before a vowel the V-sound frequently becomes W. Thus " Dove of Peace" is pronounced "Duw' wo' Peace." The Physiology of Speech; Fricatives* 19 V is omitted by Scandinavians before TH, L, and T, and becomes W in the middle of a word, or before N. It seems to be only the voiced V that is so omitted, the whispered sound of the letter F being invariably pronounced correctly. The reason of this omission is simply that the Scandinavian making the sound with his lips nearly closed has no definite lip-action to go through in passing to the next consonant. Watch an Englishman speaking a sentence FIG. 9. The lips duiing V, English. FIG. 10. The lips during V, Scandinavian. containing several Fs and Vs, you will see the white of his upper teeth for each of them. It is quite true that in familiar speech we do frequently drop the V-sound in such cases 5 and it seems to have been more common in the i8th century than now. But whereas the Englishman pronounces it with ease whenever he chooses, the Scandinavian has the greatest possible diffi- culty in putting it in. 20 The Pronunciation of English. W. The English W is a stumbling-block to the foreigner, but rather to the French and German than to the northern races. The French mistake is usually that they make a vowel of it and pronounce it simply 'oo. It is far more closely allied with B. In pronouncing W the mouth is so nearly closed as to cause a considerable increase of air pressure, not so great as for B, but easily felt with the fingers lightly touching the cheeks, and it is this that gives the quasi- FIG. ii. Test for the proper pronunciation of the English W. consonant sound of the English W. But to produce it, it is necessary to use a great deal more breath than the French employ in speaking English. The German mistake is of a different but interesting character. Rest the point of a thin pencil, such as is used with a dance programme, against the middle of the front teeth, keeping it there by the gentle pressure of the tip of the forefinger on the other end of the pencil. [See Fig. n.] The Physiology of Speech: Fricatives. 21 An Englishman will without the least difficulty say, "The wool with which we will work," without disturbing the pencil. If a German tries to do so, the pencil will be knocked away at once. The Englishman keeps his upper lip slill and a little drawn up, and brings the lower lip up to it; but the German keeps his lower lip still, and moves the upper lip down to it. To acquire the English action you may rest the fore- finger against the cheek-bones and the two thumbs under the chin, with the middle and third fingers flexed, and push up the upper lip with the tips of the little fingers held about two cms apart. Then say " The wool with which we will work," watching the while to see in a looking-glass that the lower lip touches the upper lip each time. N.B. The fingers must not be in the corners of the mouth, but rather near the middle of the lip, to prevent it from moving down, thus obliging the lower lip to move up. By those who do not pronounce the W strongly enough, it should be practised in conjunction with B thus : Bill Will Bell Well Ball Wall Bull Wool This should be done opposite a looking-glass, saying the words slowly, with strong articulation, and trying to get the lips for the W as nearly as possible into the same position as for B, yet without sounding B, i.e. without absolutely stopping the passage of the breath. WH. This is often represented as being Hw. It has, however, nothing to do with H, but is simply W with a larger expenditure of breath. Hold a sheet of note-paper loosely by its lower edge, 22 The Pronunciation of English* and let the upper part of it rest upon the lips, throwing the head back somewhat, that it may do so. Then say " Which witch ? " trying to blow away the paper in the act of pronouncing the WH. This will of course greatly exaggerate the pronunciation, but when you can do it you will have no farther difficulty with the correct sound. WH is pronounced more strongly in the northern parts of Britain than in the south, and in some parts of Scotland has almost the sound of F. Novelists generally spell ' why ' and ' what ' ' wy ' and 1 wot ' to represent the speech of the uneducated, the Cockney dialect making no difference between W and WH. TH. The English TH offers difficulties to all except the Greeks, and though these difficulties may have been over- come they are not always overcome in the right way. I remember a French student, who made the sound per- fectly, but always with a slight pause or hesitation. On enquiry I found she had been taught and I believe the statement is to be found in books that the English TH is made by putting out the tongue and drawing it in against the upper teeth, blowing the while. I am quite convinced that this action will produce the sound, and equally certain that I never make it that way there is not time. Take a sentence of three words " This thick thistle/' 7 The first TH can be done so, but the second coming after S and the third after K, for which the tongue is against the roof of the mouth, would require a mobility possessed only by the tongue of a serpent. Why then is the device successful at all? Simply because it ensures your doing ignorantly what you ought to do of set purpose. For the normal TH the tongue is flattened horizontally The Physiology of Speech: Fricatives. 23 and applied to all the teeth except the middle incisors, but leaves a small passage here just at the level of the edge of the teeth. For S it is drawn more back towards the middle of the teeth, and the tongue is not so flat. Hence, as putting the tongue out makes it flat, and while being drawn in it passes through the position for TH, the action taught in these French books will help you to make the sound, though it will not enable you to use it properly. In the lives of some of us there come times when the dentist is alternately a terror and a benefactor. Let it be some consolation that the ravages he both increases and repairs enable us to speak authoritatively on some questions of phonetics. Any one in the happy position of being able to remove at will one or two front teeth, may do so, and observe the action of the tongue in sounding TH, SS, TH, SS repeatedly. The tongue applies itself to the remaining teeth on one side and gums on the other, and selecting the most convenient depression in the gap leaves an aperture by it about three mms wide and one mm deep through which the breath is blown. For TH the floor of this aper- ture, constituted by the tongue, is horizontal. For SS the edge of the tongue is turned down so as to make a square end to it, and the passage through which the breath comes hissing points vertically downwards along the back of the teeth. Broadly speaking, TH is made with the edge of the teeth and the upper surface of the tongue, close to the edge of it. SS is made with the end of the tongue against the back of the teeth. But the exact action depends on the shape of the mouth and the condition of the teeth. TH has two sounds TH as in 'thin,' which is whis>- pered, like the Modern Greek 0, and DH as in ' this,' when the vocal cords vibrate, as in the Modern Greek A. 24 The Pronunciation of English. One of the faults of foreigners consists in substituting the one for the other. Sometimes this is the result of ignor- ance, and is to be cured by a free use of the pronouncing dictionary. In other cases it belongs to the dialect of the place they come from, like the substitution of B for P. In these cases pronunciation-drill is the only remedy. Other mistakes are the substitution of D for TH, frequent in Sweden, Norway, and sometimes Austria, and Finland and France ; and the substitution of S or Z for TH, common in Germany, Denmark, Austria, Russia, and France. The following words should be practised, pronouncing them slowly and forcibly, so that each letter may be audible from the other end of the room : Diphthong Healthseeker Aesthetic Athletic Hearthstone Hearthrug The letter L comprises two motions : (i.) The front of the tongue is pressed firmly against the root or thereabouts of the upper incisors and canines and premolars (i.e. all except the back teeth or grinders). The middle of the tongue is narrowed so as to leave a clear passage on either side by the upper molars. (2.) The front of the tongue is suddenly drawn 'away from the teeth with a quick explosive effect. This occurs only when 1 is followed by a vowel or closes a syllable ; e.g. Look, Bella, Well. When L is followed by N, S, Th, M, F, B, D, etc., only the first action is performed. e.g. Kiln, vulnerable, Elsie, health, elm, shelf, Elba, elder. Health is a good word to practise with. Stand in a good light close to a looking-glass, and, holding the lips The Physiology of Speech: Fricatives. 25 apart with the fingers, say the word very slowly, dwelling on the L and on the TH. At the moment of transition you will see the sides of the tongue go up and flatten them- selves out so as to touch the molars, while the tip changes its shape so as to leave a small passage by the incisors while still pressing firmly against the teeth on each side. Some writers on phonetics maintain that only one side of the tongue is drawn down in pronouncing L. After examining a great many I have come to the conclusion that most people place the tongue symmetrically ; but undoubt- edly a certain number use one side only, just as some people raise one eyebrow, or wink with one eye. It is not so many years since it was the fashion in certain circles to smile with one side of the mouth. People cultivated the habit and practised doing it. Then a well-known surgeon had occasion, in a popular lecture on the functions of the brain, to explain how injury to one side of the brain causes paralysis of the corresponding muscles on the other side of the body. Whereupon the sweet, sad, one-sided smile went out of fashion speedily. LL=(1I). This special sound belongs not to English but to Welsh. For in those words spelt with double L in English the sound is merely that of the ordinary letter. There are, however, so many names of places and of people in which the Welsh LI occurs that it is desirable to master the sound. For the sake of distinction it will be represented by (11). The relation of L to (11) is precisely that of W to WH. Place your tongue in position for the first part of L and blow. The rushing sound, something like and yet unlike TH or even S, is the Welsh (11). e.g. Llandudno, Llanfairfechan, Llangollen, Llewelyn. 26 The Pronunciation of English. The single L is pronounced the same in Welsh as in English. G is always hard in Welsh ; DD is pronounced as TH, CH as in German, and W is 66 and U is almost the same as ii in German. One great advantage possessed by the Welsh language is that the words are always pronounced as spelt according to these rules. Nearing Dolgelly one day in the train, I heard a young Londoner explaining to his sisters and his cousins and his aunts, the mysteries of the Welsh language. " You would never guess," he said, "that they call this place Doth-jely." It would have been difficult for him to make moremistakesinoneword. Itshould have been Do 1 l-ge 2 (ll)i' 2 with a hard G. Perhaps the most difficult place name is Pwllheli. The railway companies used to instruct their passengers to call it Pool-thely. Of late they have even printed the name Porthely. The accent is on the second syllable Pu 3 (ll)-he 2 li' 2 , the H being pronounced. SOUNDS MADE WITH THE UVULA FREE, AS IN FlG. 2. M. " Keeping the passage from mouth to nose open, go through the movements for pronouncing B." There are many people who cannot do this, because they have never learnt to recognize the sensation of opening and closing the passage. Yet if we say " Pronounce M " they do it at once. With some people it is enough to say " Breathe through the nose while pronouncing B." For all who wish to teach the pronunciation of languages it is necessary to learn the voluntary use of all the muscles concerned. The teacher must be able to recognize the signs and causes of faulty pronunciation, and also to demonstrate the methods of correcting them, just as the doctor must study diagnosis and therapeutics. The Physiology of Speech: Fricatives. 27 The difference then between B and M is that the passage behind the uvula is closed in the first case and open in the second. [Compare Fig. i with Fig. 2.] We may ask what letter there is bearing a corresponding relation to P ?' There is none. Owing to the free passage of the breath through the nose there is so little change of pressure when the lips open that unless the vocal cords are sounding there is no audible articulation ; although, of course, you can. recognize the M in a whispered word. N. The learner should now proceed to perform the tongue movements for D, keeping the uvula open. Having got the clue, he will probably recognize that this produces the sound of N, and will realize that in this case also the whispered letter corresponding to T has no distinct use. NQ. The hard sound of G pronounced with the uvula open becomes NG. This sound occurs in the middle and at the end of words, but not at the beginning of them, save in the non- Aryan languages with which this book is not concerned. There is no real difficulty in pronouncing it as an initial letter, and it may be a useful exercise for those who are trying to acquire complete control over the muscles of the voice organs. Perhaps the best example is the name of the well-known African animal, the Gnu, whereof the poet has said : This creature has a name so fierce and strong, That even hardy Boers pronounce it wrong. In English NG has three different pronunciations, exem- plified in the words ringer, finger, ginger. In ringer we have the simple sound of NG. In finger, after the NG has sounded the uvula is drawn up for a moment, closing 28 The Pronunciation of English, the passage and making the sound of G thus, fing-ger. In ginger the N and the G are separate letters thus : gin-jer. (N.B. In words of this type the G is soft before E or I and hard before other vowels, e.g. Fingal = Fi 2 n-ga 2 l). No definite rules can be given. Terminal NG has the simple sound and retains it when syllables are added, e.g., sing, singer. Also when N and G are separate letters they remain separate in derivatives,^.: hinge = hinje, hinges = hin-jes, hingeing = hin-jing. NK is always NG-K e.g.-. think, rink = thing-k, ring-k. * Anything' is pronounced 'anythingk' by the uneducated. But to sound the hard G after the NG at the end of a word in English is the peculiarity of the Austrian and the Hun- garian, who can be recognized by it. On the other hand it is just as bad a mistake to leave it out where it ought to be sounded, and to say Eng-land instead of Eng-gland. Only "perseverance and the pronouncing dictionary " will cure such errors. N.B. In English GN is either pronounced simply as N, e.g. sign, benign, feign ; or else the two letters belong to different syllables, as in ignorance = ig | norance. The pronunciation ing-yorance is quite wrong. GN is never pronounced NG-Y in any purely English word. Signer = se 1 n-yo 2 r is the nearest approach to this, but here the first syllable has no sound of NG but is simply N. Some interesting points arise in connection with this series of sounds. i. As regards the difficulty of pronouncing ' Gnu.' In sounding the hard G the uvula is drawn up and the passage behind it to the nose is closed, for we can pinch the nose without altering the sound, and at the same time the back of the tongue is pressed against the soft palate so that the passage of breath through the mouth is also closed. The Physiology of Speech: Fricatives* 29 In sounding NG, the passage behind the uvula is not closed, for we can breathe through the nose, but the back of the tongue is pressed against the soft palate, so that we do not breathe through the mouth. This is shown by pinching the nose, which converts NG to G. A beginner, trying to pronounce ' Gnu,' presses the back of the tongue so firmly against the soft palate as to close the passage to the nose also. The remedy is, while practising, to put in a previous syllable thus ongoo. Then gradually separate it and finally omit it ong-oo, ongoo, o-gnoo, gnoo. And when you have succeeded you can boast of being able to do what scarcely one Englishman in a hundred can manage ! The received 'dictionary' pronunciation of the word is ' noo.' L. 2. The mode of forming the L may be studied by means of N. \Vith N the tongue is spread out so as to come against all the upper teeth. Since the breath passes freely through the nose the sound can be continued for some seconds, and we can watch what happens with a hand-glass, holding the lips apart on the left side with the middle and third fingers of the left hand. Sound the word ' tunnel ' very slowly, passing from N to L without sounding the vowel, but as if it were spelt tunnle. You will see the sides of the tongue come down for the L. What you will not see, is that at the same time the uvula goes up and the passage to the nose is stopped. But you may prove it by pinching the nose, first during the N, which is at once converted to D, and then during the L, which is unaffected. 3 The Pronunciation of English. TL. 3. What happens when L is preceded by D or T or ND? The normal pronunciation of T or D includes the explosive drawing back of the tip of the tongue. But for the L the tip is pressed firmly against the teeth. Do we then replace the tongue ? The usual and natural way in which this sound is made is by drawing down the sides of the tongue with an explosive effort, without. moving the tip at all. This may be seen by saying the words butler, bundle, battle, puddle, little, etc., opposite a looking-glass. In all these cases, the T and D are not really T or D but a special sound used only in connection with L. This fact explains a difficulty often felt by the French, who pronounce the words ' little people ' either { lit tel peopul' or 'lit!' peopl'.' In the first case they insert between the T and the L a vowel, which does not belong to the English word ; and in the second case they use an aspirated L, like a very weak Welsh (11) for the second letter. Other nations make the same mistake, but not so often. Incidentally, spelling reformers may note that ' little ' and 'littel ' are not alike in sound. TN. 4. Another special sound is used when we pronounce TN as in 'button.' According to the spelling there should be a vowel between T and N, but it is doubtful if one person in a hundred so pronounces it. And in 'light- ning ' the vowel is absent both from spelling and pro- nunciation. Consider the actions involved : For T the tongue is pressed against all the upper teeth, especially the tip of it, which at the end of the T is drawn back with a jerk, The Physiology of Speech: Fricatives. 31 letting the compressed breath out of the mouth, the nasal passage being kept closed. For N the tongue is pressed against all the upper teeth, the nasal passage being kept 'open, and at the end of the N the tongue is drawn back. Therefore in passing from T to N the only thing left to be done is to open the nasal passage. Accordingly the com- pressed air in the mouth escapes that way, making a sound not unlike that of T but weaker. And that is the sound heard in * button ' and ' lightning.' X This letter is simply KS or KZ. I have recently met with a good many cases in which the K sound has been omitted, thus: expect = espect, excuse = escuse, exact = ezact, etc. This is obviously a learner's mistake, and is quite inadmissible. It must be always ekspekt, ekskuse, ekzakt, etc. (In rapid speech, exact = egzakt.) LECTURE III. THE PHYSIOLOGY OF SPEECH : VOWELS. VOWELS are not properly sounds, but resonances, that is to say echoes of sounds. Sound, like light, is reflected when it strikes against any smooth surface ; but whereas in the case of light the surface must be not only smooth but polished, sound waves are so many times bigger that for the finest of them the wall of a house is as good a reflector as a looking-glass is for light. Accordingly, if we shout or fire a gun in the open and there is a house some distance off, we hear the sound repeated after a longer or shorter interval according as the house is far off or near. And if there are several houses at different distances, all facing our way, we shall hear an echo or reflection from each of them. Now, what I want you to realize is this, that if we have a number of echoes six or eight is quite enough coming quickly enough one after the other at equal intervals, they will produce a musical note. And the pitch of that note will not change when you change the pitch of the sound that produces the echo. There used to be in Oxford a set of iron railings near Worcester College, which illustrated this. There were boards behind the railings, and if you stamped a little sharply in walking past, every footfall gave forth a ringing sound like pink ! pink ! pink ! Years ago as a boy I had heard the same thing by similar railings, and was given the explanation of it by my The Physiology of Speech : Vowels; 33 father. From each iron bar there comes an echo, and as the bars are all the same distance apart the echoes come at corresponding regular intervals. For sound travels 333 metres per second, and the intervals will be the time required for sound to travel the extra distance, to and fro, between one bar and the next. If the bars are half a metre apart we shall have 333 echoes per second if a quarter of a metre, 666, very nearly corresponding to E natural, one third above the tuning-fork. And if they are only 12 \ centimetres apart the echoes will be at the rate of 1332 per second, giving a note an octave higher. Multiple echoes of this kind are sometimes heard as you approach the foot of a flight of steps in one of the under- ground passages of the Tube Railway. They are, however, lower in pitch and therefore less distinct than those given by iron railings, because the distance between the steps is greater. We have thus proved that a series of echoes gives a musical note, the pitch of which depends on the number of echoes per second, and not on the sound that causes the echo. But we may have a series of echoes if the shape of the enclosure in which the sound is produced is such that it can be reflected backwards and forwards between the walls.. Go into a quite empty house and clap your hands in each of the rooms. You will hear shrill echoes pealing round the corners of the ceilings : each room will give a different note. When the carpets have been put down the note will be altered. When the curtains go up the song of the ceiling corners will be stopped, and when the pictures are hung the voices of the echoes are hushed, and decorous silence reigns henceforth. What a pity it is that anybody ever connected pictures with ideas of controversial doctrine ! D 34 The Pronunciation of English. "Tell me," says the preacher, " you who know all about sound, how can I cure this horrible echo in my church, that makes me unintelligible to half my hearers?" "Echo, my dear Sir?" says the physicist. "Hang pictures ; cover your walls with pictures." "Hang pictures?" says the poor man, "pictures! but the odium theologicum ! " " Hang the odium theologicum, my dear Sir," says the physicist. To resume. How are echoes connected with vowel sounds ? You have probably, as children, amused yourselves with speaking into a jug and noting the weird tones imparted to the voice. I have here jugs and flower-vases of different shapes and sizes, and you may hear the characteristic sound given by each as I speak into it. With a little practice you might recognize by the sound alone which one I am using. Now, if you come to think of it, that is precisely what we want vowels for, to produce a set of recognizable sounds, so that we can tell one word from another. Each nation has its own set of vowels, just as you and I may have different sets of jugs ; only as all these various sounds are producible by the same mouth, merely by altering the position and shape of its parts, so it is necessary for us to learn how each nation makes its own characteristic sounds, that we may imitate them. We may classify vowels broadly into those which can be sounded continuously without change, such as A in father, and those which cannot, such as U in tube, which obviously changes its character as we proceed, from e becoming 66. It is evident that the first, being simpler, should be studied first, more particularly as some of them may turn The Physiology of Speech: Vowels, 35 out to be component elements of the vowels in which the tone changes. They may be appropriately termed PURE VOWELS. The first four of these, A 1 , A 2 , OO, and E 1 , occur in the words father, fall, fool, and me respectively. Here we may note that the tone of certain stops upon the organ is more or less like these vowels. The open diapason has very much the A 1 sound, certain soft-toned stops suggest A 2 and OO, and the stop called Principal has very strongly the sound of E 1 . And, be it observed, this characteristic is largely independent of the pitch. There is, for each stop, one octave for which the special tone is most marked, but you recognize it throughout the rest of the scale. Now it has been noted, and made the subject of much controversy, that vowel sounds are independent of the pitch of the voice. Yet every singer knows that some vowels are easier to sing on a low note and others on a high one. Recent phonograph experiments show that outside certain limits, which, however, are fairly wide, the vowel tone is not independent of the pitch of the resonance. These vowels, A 1 , A 2 , OO, E 1 , as in father, fall, fool, me, may be termed the pure long vowels. There are other vowels, popularly considered short, which are equally entitled to be classed as pure, namely the vowels in bet, pat, dot. sir, turn. We are accustomed to use them only between con- sonants, and therefore regard them as " short," but there is no difficulty in sounding them continuously, either with the voice or with resonators. The really short vowels cannot be so sounded without becoming unrecognizable. They form a class by them- 36 The Pronunciation of English. selves, not pure because they cannot be sounded con- tinuously, yet not diphthongs, because they are too short to admit of any change in sound. They occur in the words bit, but, bull. Now of these vowels, five differ from the rest. Say the words Father, fall, fool, be, burr, full, and then repeat each one, pinching the nostrils together while so doing. It makes no difference to the sound, because for all these vowels the uvula is raised and the nasal passage closed, as in Fig. i. Say the words Bet, bat, dot, sir, but, and repeat each one with the nose pinched. It gives a nasal sound, showing that for these five vowels the passage behind the uvula is open, as in Fig. 2. Before discussing in detail the pronunciation of English vowel sounds by foreigners it is necessary to make some reference to the vagaries of English spelling. One would like to claim that it is one of the duties attached to the possession of a great literature to preserve the monuments of its past history by retaining the ancient forms. Unfortunately most of the eccentricities of our spelling represent little more than the resourceful initiative of our forefathers during the last two or three centuries. They have given us an orthography which is full of variety, sprinkled with reminiscences of antiquity, and enlivened with surprises. They have vindicated our claim of liberty by spelling in one way and pronouncing in another, and by pronouncing the same spelling half a dozen different ways. I have therefore collected together the various spellings of each sound, and you are to understand that in each case the sound is that of the first word of the list always a The Physiology of Speech: Vowels. 37 familiar word and that the rest are pronounced in the same way, not merely in speaking carelessly or rapidly, but in the most solemn and deliberate speech, exactly as if they were spelt with the same vowel as the first word. Old students will know how to use these lists in class- teaching. First the teacher reads the list through slowly and deliberately. Each student in turn reads from five to ten words, copying exactly the vowel sound given by the teacher, who listens like a pianoforte tuner, and as it were strikes the right note directly there is any divergence from it. N.B. Look out for " traps." A 1 . The vowel A 1 offers little difficulty to the foreigner. The only divergence from the typical pronunciation I have come across was that of some Russians who gave it a broader sound more like A 2 . In some parts of England there is a tendency to drawl it as though it were a 1 -a 1 , with a falling inflection on the second half. Especially is this the case in Essex, where the people are called Essex calves from the bleating sound of their talk. I have come across occasional instances of it from Westphalia and Prussia. With regard to certain examples, note that not even an Englishman can be sure of the pronunciation of a ' place name ' till he has been told. A 1 . Father harp aunt sergeant calf Rather yard draught clerk half Lath heart laughter Cherwell psalm Far hearth guard Hertford haulm Example. In a class this list may be taken as follows : A reads lines i and 2, B lines 3 and 4, C lines i and 2, D lines 3 and 4, and so on. 38 The Pronunciation of English; Or to prevent successive pupils having quite the same words : A reads columns i and 2, B columns 3 and 4, C columns 5 and i, D columns 2 and 3, etc. Some vowels need very little attention, others require a good deal of practice. A 2 . This is a much more difficult vowel. The Poles do not possess it, but substitute some form of O 2 or O 1 . The Scandinavian races have something so like it, and yet not quite identical, that their difficulty in acquiring the English sound is increased thereby. Especially by Norwegians our A 2 is shortened almost to O 2 . So also do many Austrians, notably those from Pilsen, who pronounce all as o 2 ll. Germans on the other hand tend rather to the first sound of A 1 , making it a a hl. A 2 . Fall saunter broad storm nought warm Water naughty oar for four chalk Saw taught awe more *Magdalen College course Flaw haunch floor glory cloth coarse OO. This vowel offers considerable difficulties to all the Scandinavian group, who substitute for it a modified vowel made with the tongue pushed farther forward. In many country districts of England ' two ' is pronounced 'tew' to rhyme with few. This sounds somewhat like the Scandinavian vowel, but is not as a rule identical with it, being simply the substitution of U* for OO. But in the North of Ireland we get the real modified vowel. Magdalen College, Oxford, is pronounced Ma 2 dle 2 n CoMle 2 ). So also Magdalen Bridge and Magdalen School. But Magdalen Street and Magdalen Church, by Cornmarket, Oxford, are pronounced Ma ;? gdale' 2 n, where a is a very short a. The Physiology of Speech: Vowels* 39 In German pronunciation of English it is rare. I have found it in Schleswig and occasionally in Austria. Poles and Hungarians frequently shorten this vowel. OO. Boot two wound blue Tool who through flute Shoe move moon fruit Screw tomb rhubarb *sluice E 1 . As a rule there is very little difficulty with this vowel. Some few people lengthen it out unnecessarily, but that is a mere error of judgment, easily corrected by observing and copying English custom in the matter. A far more serious difficulty is felt by a comparatively small number of Scandinavians principally Norwegians. They make two syllables of the long E 1 as if it were followed by a short U 2 : thus * seen ' becomes se 1 -u 2 n, mean = me 1 -u 2 n, and thief =the 1 -e 2 f, the second syllable having a falling inflection. It is interesting to note that precisely this intonation occurs in the dialects of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. One is almost tempted to ask whether it may not be a legacy to us from the Viking invasions. In any case the peculiarity is very persistent and difficult to correct. The method most successful, in my experience, is to let the student pronounce the vowel deliberately in two syllables, but making the second a short I 2 , with a rising inflection thus : seen = see-i 2 n, thief = the 1 -! 2 !*. After practising this for some time, gradually fuse the two syllables into one. The physiological cause of it is a tendency to relax the muscles of the tongue after forming the vowel, and before passing to the next consonant. * Sluice = sloos. 40 The Pronunciation of English* Nothing but constant attention and patient effort will correct the habit. E 1 . Me queen mean deceive key ravine He seen bean leisure quay quinine She feet sea mien Caius College beer Legend seal a tear thief people bier N.B. Quinine is occasionally pronounced in the French fashion Ki' 2 nene. An ultra-British pronunciation is Qui 2 n 3 ine. The best form preserves the sound of the Qu and accents the last syllable, thus : qui' 2 ne 1 ne. Legend and leisure are also sometimes pronounced as if the vowel of the first syllable were E 2 . Caius College, Cambridge, is pronounced exactly as if it were spelt Keys. So also is quay, a place where they unload ships. E 2 . This sound comes easily to most people. In Saxony and Russia there is a tendency to pronounce it like a 3 . Thus ferry = fa 3 rry. Among the French one often hears va 3 rry for very. Russians tend rather to say tu 2 ll for tell. So do the Dutch, who also say ma 3 t for me-t. E 2 . Men weather said any leopard Met read says many threepence Enclose dead wealth Thames" jeopardy Red zealous b pleasure realm endeavour A 3 . The tendency to substitute E 2 for A 3 is so strong among Danes that it is almost possible to recognize them by it. * Thames =Te 2 mz, but Thame = Ta 4 m. b Zealous = ze 2 lu 2 s, but zeal = ^e 1 !. The Physiology of Speech: Vowels. 41 They say me 2 n for ma 3 n, he 2 c for hat, etc. Occasionally the a 3 is lengthened to a 1 , as in ha a hnd for ha 3 nd or shortened almost to u as in hu 2 ppy for ha 3 ppy. Other Scandinavians do the same, but not to such a marked degree, and in most parts of Germany the tendency, though decided, is comparatively slight. It is stronger in Austria and in some parts of Russia. The true A 3 sound is made with the nasal passage open, and in making it one is conscious of a certain muscular effort that is relaxed when passing to the sound E 2 .^ Pro- nounce slowly the words ma 3 n, me 2 n, several times then without changing the action in any other way, try to leave out the ms and ns and to say simply a 3 e 2 - a 3 e 2 . After a little practice you will feel the change of position of the back of the tongue and the uvula and soft palate. It may be noted that the ba 3 a 3 of a sheep is almost exactly the English a 3 , with a nasal tone added. A 3 . Fat shall plaid* can Mat ass salmon b lad Man sang Jack badge Than Anne happy rat In the sentence " I shall shell peas in a shawl in chilly weather," which affords excellent practice in vowel sounds, there are more difficulties than appear on the surface. Seven nations make seven characteristic mistakes in it, all different. You may find out what they are from this book. O 1 . The sound of this vowel, and the sounds most generally substituted for it, will be found in the sentence "Not nut nor gnat" (no ! t nu 2 t na 2 r na 3 t). * Plaid plaM usually, but := pla 4 d in some places. b Salmon=sa :f mo 1 n, but Psalm ^rsa 1 . 42 The Pronunciation of English, Of the three errors the first is by far the most common. It is one of the characteristics of the Danish pronunciation of English. I have met with it in Stockholm, but it is not very common in the countries of the North. As is the case with the typically English sounds there is a general tendency among foreigners to diverge slightly in one direction or the other from the true tone. On the one hand ' not ' becomes ' nu' 2 t,' and on the other hand ' gna 3 t/ Sometimes the tendency is very slight. But when a dozen people from different parts of Europe read in succession the same list of sounds, the contrast makes it easy to detect. O 1 . Not what squadron swallow yacht On quantity quality swan knowledge 1 " Song quarrel quadrangle swamp problem Lot hovel squalid watch novel Cases of the substitution of A 2 for O 1 occurred among Russians and Poles. The majority of those who tended towards the sound of A 2 came from Saxony or Austria. I 1 AND U 1 . When, in the pages of a novel, a mother addresses her daughter as 'my gurl,' everybody knows by instinct that she is not of the caste of Vere de Vere ; the mere fact that ' ur ' is substituted for Mr ' is as eloquent as the omission of an c h ' or the insertion of monotonously unpleasant adjectives. Yet I doubt if one person out of three could explain the precise difference of pronunciation indicated. If while saying such words as burst, world, word, or curl, we pinch the nose, it makes no difference to the sound. But if we do so while saying sir, girl, pearl, a nasal tone is imparted to the vowel. Undoubtedly there are many b Knowledge = noMle 2 ) ; but by a few people, no 2 lle 2 j. The Physiology of Speech : Vowels. 45 people, especially in the South of England, who do not make the distinction, but with those who do so it appears to be of this character. The sound is not an easy one for foreigners to acquire. They tend as a rule towards the sound of A in 'share/ I have known a German live ten years in England without acquiring the correct pronunciation of ' sir ' or of ' turn." The terminal E in such words as * Knabe ' has the sound in some parts of Germany, but unfortunately by no means in all. Also the characteristic note of hesitation of an English- man, who rising to address an audience says : " Ladies and er gentlemen ! Unaccustomed as I am to er public speaking " is fairly close to it. UVULA AS IN FIG. 2. I 1 . Sir earn myrtle bird Girl German myrrh girdle Pearl tern early courteous Earth whirled girt circuit UVULA AS IN FIG. i. U 1 . Turn burden her Urn turbulent mermaid Journey word terse World burn cur Sentence for exercise : " Fashion papers say few girls wear curls now." |2 There is only one fault to correct in the pronunciation of this vowel ; but it is almost universal. Nearly all foreigners make it too long. So far as I can judge, it is safe to say 44 The Pronunciation of English* that the correct sound is heard in the German ' ich.' It is the shortest of all short vowels, and there must not be the faintest suspicion of the sound of e in it. It Pin Spin Lid mystery physic gypsy minute' I 2 . women build pill sieve guilt circuit 1 * pretty quit mischief breeches England guitar U 2 . As a rule this vowel is pronounced with fair accuracy. The most general tendency is in the direction of A 1 , so that ' but ' becomes ' ba^t,' only shorter. Similarly ' some ' becomes ' sa. l m,' and ' bunker ' becomes ' ba 3 nker.' Occasionally the tendency is towards E 2 , so that c nuns ' sounds like ' ne 2 ns. } U 2 . But above rough Monday does one Club come country mongrel brother dozen Rebuff shove tub twopence money bunker b Put 1 covet flourish sponge dost thorough U 3 . Saving a few accidental cases where this vowel has been pronounced a little too long or a little too short, I have found little to correct in the pronunciation of it, except by those Norwegians and Danes who use the b Circuit =:si 1 rke 2 t. c Minute, of time mi 2 ni 2 t. But minute, very small = mi 2 nu 4 te ; or emphatically, very extremely small = mi 1 nu 4 te. h Bunker, in the game of golf. Any obstacle or difficult position from which it is hard to strike the ball if it gets there. i Pu 2 t, and its derivatives. In golf, a gentle stroke intended to pu 2 t the ball in the hole when it has reached the green. Probably a dialect pronunciation of pu 3 t. The Physiology of Speech: Vowels. 45. modified vowel sound of 66. They keep the tongue too far forward in the mouth for this vowel also. U 3 . Pull book should Sugar look bull Push good wolf Put wool woman N.B. In this list the word pu 3 t has its ordinary signi- ficance and its ordinary pronunciation. 'Wolf is noteworthy as the only word in the English language for which there is no rhyme. 4 6 LECTURE IV. THE PHYSIOLOGY OF SPEECH : GLIDES. DIPHTHONGS may be regarded as combination of pure vowels sounded in succession, e.g., e-66 = u : a' 2 -e = oi. By analogy they might be represented in musical notation after this fashion : To any one acquainted solely with key-board instruments this could only mean two notes, each distinct and definite, in succession. But to the violinist there may be a third possibility the glissanda, in which the note changes pitch passing without a break from one to the other. And this gliding sound has a peculiarly penetrating effect. One instrument doing so makes itself heard amid an orchestra. Something of this kind applied to vowels is what we mean by a * glide ' neither the one note nor the other, but the sweep from one to the other. Now it is evident that to get this right we must find the. right note to begin on and the right note to end on, and having done so must be careful to dwell neither on the beginning nor on the end. Take a simple case : the country-folk in saying the word mile, begin with too broad an A 1 and end with too long an E 1 , and they pass from one to the other much as you pass The Physiology of Speech: Glides. 47 from note to note on the piano, thus ma 1 a 1 - e 1 !, inserting a drawl in the middle of the A 1 sound. We might ask, why should this sound uneducated, and why should it disappear from the speech of cultivated people, though in all probability they get no direct training in phonetics ? For the same reason that the slouching walk and the slovenly dress disappear. Because education and culture carry with them that con- sideration for others which is the foundation of self-respect and makes a man take trouble to hold himself well, to behave well, and to speak well. Because to drawl is a sign of the laziness that goes with ignorance and you may note that to be ignorant one need not necessarily be poor. Anyhow, whether there is any truth in these suggestions or not, it is a fact that the crisp articulation that goes with culture avoids this drawling intonation, and gives full value to the glissando of the glides. The four glides are I 3 , A 4 , A 5 , O 2 . I 3 . This sound does not seem to offer in itself any difficulty to foreigners, but it would appear that the directions for its pronunciation, given in some books, have been misunder- stood. At any rate the result is that in a good many cases it is pronounced as a long a, followed by a long e, produc- ing that very effect which we carefully teach our own children to avoid. Expressing the sound by a diagram it is thus : The faulty pronunciation which is to be avoided is shown in a. The true glide is illustrated by b. 48 The Pronunciation of English. Probably a better result would be got by beginning with that shortened form of A 1 which is sometimes substituted for U 2 (compare bu 2 t = ba : ht ; some = sa. l m) and stop- ping with the short I 2 instead of the long E 1 , throwing the whole of the emphasis on the glide. But it has seemed to me that this vowel-sound exists in most languages. The French needed no correction, and the German Sonnenschein contained the sound as the English pro- nounce it. I 3 . Mine defy eye height die hyacinth Pine ay sight either d quiet tyrant Defiant ply aisle neither* 1 guide dye Pint my choir quire buy sign N.B. By the Irish I 3 is pronounced oi, as in oil ; thus : mine = moin ; sight = soight. A 4 . This vowel offers more difficulties to the English them- selves than to foreigners. Some Poles pronounce it I 3 , or sometimes E 1 . Amongst Russians. I have met with c Ie 2 ddy ' for ' lady.' Norwegians and Danes make the same mistake as the English of York- shire and the Fens namely, they make a double sound of it, finishing with an obscure short U 2 , thus : name == na 4 -u 2 m; break bra 4 -u 2 k, with a falling inflection. This is best cured, as was explained under the vowel E 1 , by going to the opposite extreme, and practising na 4 -i 2 m, bra 4 -i 2 k, with a rising inflection until the error is cured. The more remarkable mistake is purely English, or rather Cockney, and it is comparatively modern. It is the substitution of I 3 for A 4 . d Or ether, nether. The Physiology of Speech; Glides. 49 A Cockney says * a ti 3 dy H 3 dy,' instead of ' a ti 3 dy Ia 4 dy.' But you will not find any trace of this in Charles Dickens. It came in, so far as I know, between 1870 and 1880 certainly not before 1860, and the tone of it has spread a good deal higher than the class in which it commenced. As near as one can tell, the true sound of the English vowel is found in the Italian interjection ' Deh ! ' A 4 . Fate faint eyot h weight they Name tail pray break prey Mane deign hay yea grey Ague' persuade pla)er feign eh A 5 r. This vowel sound is only met with in connection with the letter r. Pronounce the words sa 3 t, si j r ; then, leaving out the consonants, A 3 , I 1 ; and finally make the glide between these two vowels. This gives the sound with some degree of accuracy. In the north of England where the r is sounded the glide is strongly heard ; in the south, where it is omitted, the I 1 sound is dwelt upon so much more that the glide becomes practically a diphthong. It should be observed that in all these cases except in the word Sarah it is the burr (r or r) and not the trill (R) that must be used. A 5 . Air their mare pear j Hair heir Sarah tear k Lair erewhile tare there Chair hare bare bear h Eyot, an island in the Thames, pronounced a 4 t. l A-gue = a 4 gu 4 , a kind of malaria. J Pear = pa 5 r, a fruit ; spear = spe 1 r, a weapon. k Tear = tar, a rent, or to rend ; but tear = te 1 !, a teardrop. 50 The Pronunciation of English* 0-. This is another case in which pronunciation is spoilt by a tendency to drawl. In English dialects we get all sorts of varieties between Na^oo, Na 2 -oo, and Ne 2 -a 8 -oo, and we are careful to correct these tendencies whenever we come across them in our own people. But somehow an impression seems to have got abroad that something of this kind, especially the second, represents the true English O 2 . My experience is that Germans, French, and Italians pronounce the English O 2 better by the light of nature than from the instructions of the books, which tend only to produce that drawl which the cultivated English avoid. But Russians, Poles, and Austrians frequently sub- stitute A 2 for O 2 , e.g. most = ma 2 wst, or else shorten it, e.g. no 2 ble = no 1 bble ; and the Scandinavian group, including the neighbouring parts of Germany, pronounce it either A 2 , e.g. own = awn = a 2 n instead of o 2 n, or introduce a pre- liminary E 1 sound, thus : no = ne 1 -a 3 -ow. This, of course, is to be strenuously avoided. O 2 . No though toast foe folk note Bold shoulder boat crow brogue 1 mote Moment dough moat quote droll toll So hoax stoat sew coax soul OU. This is one of the real diphthongs, commencing with A 1 and ending with ~OO. Almost the only error met with is the too great lengthening of the initial A 1 , which should be left as soon as sounded. The occasional substitution by foreigners of O 1 or O 2 for OU is, I fancy, an accidental error, and not due to any .difficulty in producing the sound. 1 Brogue the peculiar accent of the Irish. The Physiology of Speech : Glides, 5 1 OU. Out how bough cow Rout down plough pound Noun bow m howl prow U 4 . Tube usual nuisance few youth mute Duty musical suit ewe you pure Use enthusiasm presume yew Q Bute Yule situation due pew impugn suet* The oo of this diphthong is preceded by an E 1 or Y sound. Practically the only mistake made consists in leaving this out. But those nations that substitute the modified vowel for the English oo do the same here, giving a foreign tone to their pronunciation, which should be avoided. OI. Oil toy Moist boy Point joy Loiter Hoyden This diphthong consists simply of the two vowels A 2 and I 2 sounded in succession. Danes substitute I 3 for it, pronouncing point = pi 3 nt, and boy = by 3 . The American oil = i 3 le is well known. Singularly enough the Irish make the converse substitu- tion, saying moine for mine and point for pint. Bow =bou, a gesture of salutation ; also the fore-part of a ship or boat at sea : but Bow = bo 2 , a species of knot that can be easily untied : also the fore-part of a row-boat on rivers inland. Thus to row bow {= bo 2 ) is to take the oar nearest the boat's head, and to row stroke (= stro' 2 k) is to take the oar nearest the steersman. n Suet. Note that this word has two syllables : su 4 -e 2 t, whereas suit=su 4 t has only one. Hoyden. The name of a character in one of Ben Jonson's plays a boisterous, good-tempered, tomboy of a girl. 52 The Pronunciation of English. The following sentences contain examples of all the English vowel sounds : A large cup full of soup. I shall shell peas in a shawl in chilly weather. The fashion papers say few girls wear curls now. Buy the boys a bonny pony. 53 LECTURE V. THE following exercise may be taken simultaneously by the entire class. It is intended to break down the idea which so many people seem to have, that there must be a vowel between one consonant and another, and it does most effectually obviate the difficulty of reproducing a given sequence of sounds in a foreign language which does not happen to be frequent in your own. Write down on the blackboard : B-P S Z SH ZH r r D-T F V TH TH R R G-K M N NG W L The teacher signs with the pointer for all to take breath together, and then points to four of these letters one after another, pausing for about one second on each while the class sound it. The letters are to be taken at random in every possible order, each being sounded loudly and con- tinuously as long as the pointer rests on it. And when the pointer moves you must pass from one sound to the next without a vowel and without a break, thus : Nnnnththththsssffff Vvvvzzzzththththrrrr At first sight it seems a useless and unnecessary accom- plishment. Yet you cannot talk about a month's /ishing without the first, and every pair of gloves thrown away involves the second. You are merely learning to do slowly and of set purpose what you can already do casually and quickly. 54 The Pronunciation of English* Explosives may occur, but cannot of course be prolonged. Thus we may have NgngngngkssssrTrTllll in a chain with the \\nksflzt, or Ksssstssssprrrr in nexf jr/ring, or several explosives together, as ptkr, in ( whipt cream,' or you may have a sequence to which English words cannot easily be put : ShshshshvvvvRRRRngngngng. It is a linguistic gymnastic that greatly strengthens the muscles of articulation. The nation most in need of it is the Italian, whose characteristic it is to insert a vowel after each consonant, whether in the middle or at the end of a word. None the less English Elementary Schools would be all the better for it. There has arisen of late years a class of phonetic teacher whose one object appears to be the destruction of the English language under pretext of keeping pace with modern phonetics. I have heard third-rate teachers de- liberately advocate the pronunciation 'six munss' for six months. Rapid change in the pronunciation of a nation is the characteristic not of civilization but of savagery. Max Miiller used to tell the story of a missionary who, having translated part of the New Testament into the language of the tribe to whom he was sent, came home to have it published. When, two years later, he returned with the printed volumes, their language had altered so much that they could not understand him. Evidently they went in for up-to-date phonetics. From observations I once made on the language of birds, I came to the conclusion that apart from some few elementary and universally understood The Physiology of Speech. 55 calls, their association of a definite cry with a particular idea is only temporary. And indeed it requires little thought to realize that it is the permanence of the associa- tion of ideas and sounds that renders possible the expression in language of the tremendous complexity of human thought. But if the thought of one generation could not be com- municated to the next, what would become of human progress ? The supremacy of man is bound up in the permanence of language. Some little practice is needed to acquire the English method of dealing with two explosives in succession ; as for instance, a black cat, a dead dog, an egg gone bad, a bad temper, big brother, Lipton, cocktail, Radbone, etc. To say with the Italian, black-a cat, dead-a dog, etc., would be wrong, but it would be equally un-English to say bla-cat or blak-at, and dead-og might be mistaken for dead hog, with the h left out. Where the two letters are different, as in Lipton, Rad- bone, etc., we pronounce them both, and it will be found that the difficulty of doing so is entirely imaginary. When it is a matter of the repetition of the same letter, we make a just recognizable pause between the forcible stoppage of the breath and its sudden release, and this is accepted as a reduplication of the letter. The fault with foreigners generally is that they do not articulate strongly enough to bring out the effect. An interesting example occurs in the word 'blackguard.' A negro doing sentry duty might be referred to as the black guard, but a blackguard is a disreputable person a serious difference of meaning made by omitting to sound k before g, and pronouncing the word ' blagard.' The following sentences should be read aloud, not too 56 The Pronunciation of English. slowly, but with forcible distinctness so as to be completely intelligible to a person at the other end of the room. Some students will find themselves making an unexpected mistake in pronouncing them. Exercises. Jack Spratt and Tom Pratt had sprats for breakfast in the nursery. It was very amusing to hear Jack's prattle about Tom's sprat and Tom's prattle about Jack's sprat. A pink collar on a white cat. Why do you talk about trifles ? You should undertake to do some useful work in London. We women are weak creatures. [Besant.] If Dick crows when the cock crows, the neighbours will get very little sleep ; but if Dick rose when the cock crows he would not sleep so late. If Mr. Smith said he swam a river a mile wide, and smiled, which would be wider Mr. Smith's smile, or Mr. Smith's mile? H. The sound of the H is produced by so altering the shape of the parts about the root of the tongue that the passage of the breath through the aperture can be heard. There is some variety in the way this is done, and every gradation of sound from a scarcely audible 'rough breath- ing ' to the full throat guttural. The French generally make it too soft, and some Germans pronounce it more gutturally than the English, but both for French and for Italians it is one of the difficulties of our language. And it is the more desirable to eradicate the fault because to drop one's aitches is considered a sign of insufficient education. Sad to say. it is even a worse fault to put them in where they are not wanted. The Physiology of Speech. 57 Punch tells the story of a railway director, who hearing the porter at Acton call out ' Hacton ! Hacton ! ' as the train came in, had him transferred to Hanwell, only to find him next week with equal cheerfulness calling out ' Anwell! Anwell ! ' The omission of an h may seriously alter the meaning of a sentence. Thus : ' I hate him ' in the mouth of a French woman may amount to a confession of cannibalism. The Glottal Catch. When a word begins with a vowel an Englishman begins it like a note on the violoncello, without any effort. So does a Frenchman or an Italian. But among the Teutonic and Scandinavian nations a considerable number begin it with a sort of explosive jerk, as though the passage of the breath had been momentarily stopped and then released. In the absence of a sign for it in the English alphabet it will be represented in this book by (") quotation marks between brackets. The only English word beginning in this way is a groan ; and that we never express in print. The glottal catch (") is especially marked in Saxony, where it occurs not merely in words beginning with a vowel but in the middle of a word before the syllable that bears the accent. One of the best test sentences is from Tennyson 'The Brook': For men may come, and men may go, But (") I go (") on for (") ever. It may be asked : What do the English do in such a case ? Very much as the French would. They join the end of one word to the beginning of the next when that can be done, and when two vowels come together, if the first is an ee sound they interpose the ghost of a Y, and if 58 The Pronunciation of English* the first is an oo sound, the ghost of a W between it and the next word. Bu 1 tl go(w)o l n for (r)ever. They do not actually make these sounds, but they go through all the movements as if they were about to do so. You may think of a Y or W, but you don't actually say it. Thus : He came to see me (y)off. You express your-opinions too-(w)-openly. But avoid like a superfluous H the following : ' The idea-r-of it ! ' This runs in families is not very common but is worse than the (") itself. There is no r in either word, and it is merely by the confusion of ideas that one is inserted. 59 LECTURE VI. NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS. DURING these ten years I have been greatly struck by the excellent pronunciation of the majority of those attending these courses. If I could speak those languages with which I am familiar with as good an accent as mine is spoken by them, I should have reason to be proud. But this excellence has made a severer critic of me. For there is no greater proof of a good pronunciation of my language than for an Englishman to say * I thought you were English.' So during every class this question has been continually before me : ' How should 1 know that this is not an English voice ? ' There is first the articulation itself, or method by which the component sounds of the language are produced. There is in the second place the accent on the words. When a Belgian referred in conversation to Lord Salisbury I did not for the moment recognize Lord Salisbury. Thirdly, there is the rhythm of the sentence. And from this alone, without being near enough to distinguish a single word, it is generally easy to tell whether the speaker talking English is French, German, Norwegian, or native. The present chapter deals solely with the peculiarities of pronunciation, recorded as follows : To each student was devoted one leaf of the class register. At the head of it was written the name and. native place of the student, and 60 The Pronunciation of English* underneath were recorded the various ^mistakes in pro- nunciation as they occurred, in a species of shorthand. Thus the progress made by each could be observed, and special attention given to points of difficulty. In order to write this chapter, the separate leaves of all the old class registers were sorted out and arranged by towns, provinces, and countries, according as there were many or few from the same place. I then went through each group tabulating the various errors according to the letters of the alphabet, and from this tabulation I prepared the account here given, It must be noted that these ' National Characteristics ' relate to the way each nation pronounces, not its own language, but English. And I have recorded in most cases not the correct pronunciation, but the mistakes you must avoid. Moreover I have in most cases spelt the mistake as an Englishman spells it when he wants to represent the accent of a foreigner, that is to say, merely altering the letter which is wrongly pronounced. But in difficult cases I have given [in square brackets] the correct pronun- ciation. PRONUNCIATION SIGNS USED IN THIS BOOK. SH = sherry CH = cherry ZH = usual J=jam r = broom r= true R = tomoRRow H = guttural r 77 l=th\\\ TH = this G = go (") = glottal catch sing-er fing-ger Fin-gal gin-jer FaHher fa 2 ll fa 3 t fa 4 te ha 5 re Me 1 me 2 n Si l r pi 2 t mi s ne NoU no* fool TVra bu 2 t bu 3 ll tu 4 be Out oil The Physiology of Speech* 6r SCANDINAVIAN CHARACTERISTICS. SWEDEN. B, P. Seldom confused, but B is sometimes omitted ; as trou'le for trouble (rare). D, T. Seldom confused but often weak ; as Lon'on for London ; ' a' the fire ' for ' at the fire.' G, K, Q. Q almost always correct. In some parts a Y is inserted between K and the next vowel, e.g. Kya 2 id for called, Kyotsh for coach. Z, S. S is often dropped at the end of a word. Z is some- times substituted for S. Sh, Ch, J. There is a tendency to insert an E 1 sound after Ch, e.g. chee-urch for church. In the neighbourhood of Lund, J is often pronounced as Y ; thus : obyect for object. N.B. In English J never has the sound of Y. r, r. Is as a rule correct, but is occasionally omitted after P ; e.g. p'oper for proper. R. The trilled R is usually correct, but occasionally guttural. Th, T/i. Are sometimes confused. Sometimes D is sub- stituted. L. LittP for little (see p. 24). F, V. Terminal V often omitted. * Some o' that,' ' o' Lon- don.' Before a vowel v = w ; thus 'Dove of peace ' = 'Dowe o' peace.' W. In about half the cases W = OO, in the rest W was fairly good. NG. Resignation was pronounced Resing-yation in some places. ("). Frequent but slight. 62 The Pronunciation of English. A-. Sometimes 'all' was pronounced oHl and sometimes o-ll. In Stockholm it was also pronounced a 1 hl. 00. The modified ti with the tongue forward in the mouth was generally substituted; thus: School = Skill. A 3 . Is often pronounced E 2 , as he 2 t for hat, me 2 n for man. 1 2 . Is made too long, as in we 1 men for women [ = wi' 2 men]. 1 . Sometimes, but rarely = U 2 ; e.g. nu 2 t for not. A 4 . Name is frequently pronounced na 4 -u 2 m, and age = a 4 -u 2 j. 1 3 . Life = la^-e 1 ^ 2 . Sometimes drawled, as by English peasants; thus: hope = he 2 -a 3 -o 2 p ; sometimes ha' 2 p. Occasionally gold = go 2 -u 2 ld, with a strong tendency to the double sound of the Lincolnshire vowels. There is a general tendency to a sing-song accent with falling inflection. NORWAY. B. P. Clup for club, pring for bring (rare). D, T. Terminal d and ed frequently omitted ; hoot for hood. G, K, Q. Quick = k'ooi 2 k, question = k'vestshu 2 n, acknow- ledge =a'knowledge i.e. all the explosive consonants weak. Z, S. Terminal S dropped. S weak. S = Z occasionally. Sh, Ch, J. Justice = shustice. Shocking ^she^ocking. r, r. Generally correct, but omitted in some places ; prove = p'oo'. R. Correct, except in Bergen where the guttural 'B. is used. The Physiology of Speech. 63 Th, Th. Frequently Th = Z or Th = D, or Th is omitted. 1 They went with me another way ' = c Zey 'ooent wi'me anoder 'ooay.' L. Rather weak. V, F. Is very characteristic, being omitted before a con- sonant and becoming W before a vowel. But the voiceless F is usually pronounced. W. Is frequently weak : away = a 3 - oo - a 4 . Sometimes it was pronounced as V., e.g. wicked = vicked. This did not occur often. NG. There is a tendency to omit the hard G after the NG; e.g. strong-er instead of strong-ger ; and also to such pronunciations as man-yificent for magnificent, ing-yorance for ignorance, which are altogether un- English. These of course are merely errors of forgetfulness and not national peculiarities of pronunciation. A 2 . The Norwegian vowel is not quite the same as the English, especially before L. It tends either to O 2 or to O 1 . Thus, saw = so 2 , always = o 1 lwu 2 z. 00. The modified ii in substituted for this vowel. Good = glide, moon = miine, &c. E 2 . Has often the double catch : mean = me 1 -u 2 n. A 3 . Often pronounced as E 2 . Thus : happy = he 2 ppy, can = ke 2 n, &c. X. Is pronounced as simple S. Thus: explain = esplain. This is unpardonable, but it is simply ignorance. 1 1 . Sir = sa 5 r = sehr. Sometimes 'work' is pronounced like ' walk.' This also is merely ignorance. 1 2 . Is made too long. 1 . Occasionally noH = nu 2 t, and wander is sounded exactly like wonder. 64 The Pronunciation of English. A 4 . Came = ka 4 y-u 2 m, table = ta 4 y-ii 2 ble. I 3 . Light = la 1 h-e 1 t ) time = ta 1 h-e 1 m. O 2 . Is variously pronounced. Sometimes O 2 -oo, as boat = bo 2 -oot, road = ro 2 -u' 2 d ; sometimes like A 2 , as no = na 2 , smoking = sma 2 -o 2 king. DENMARK. There is a strong tendency, especially in Copenhagen, to omit consonants before fricatives. B. P. 'A damp warm day ' becomes 'a dam' warm day.' D, T. The right title = the ride tidal. Enjoyment of sunshine = enjoymen' o' sunshine. Little = li'l. Some- times a Y is inserted after T, thus : turned = ty-urned. G, K, Q. Q generally correct. G often substituted for K, and sometimes K for G, or K omitted ; e.g. back again = bag again, winked = winged. Sh, Ch, J. Sh and Ch often confused. After Sh an e or y frequently inserted; e.g. child = che 1 -i s ld, shoulder = shyoulder, c. r, r. Frequently correct, sometimes omitted ; e.g. crowd = k'owd, marriage = ma'-idge, broken = b'oken. R. Occasionally guttural ; more often correct. X. Pronounced S ; thus ' express ' = espress. T/i, Th. Most often Th = Z or S. Sometimes it is omitted thus: youthful = useful, those = zoze, with memories = wi'memories. Th substituted for Th. L. ' Little people,' spoken slowly, becomes * littell peopel ' spoken rapidly ' li'l peopP. See page 24. V, F. Terminal V is either elided or changed into W as in the middle of a word. Thus overtake = owertake; of importance = o' wimportance; of course = o' course. National Characteristics* 65 W. Is sometimes correct, sometimes weak, and occasion- ally pronounced as V. Y. Y is sometimes pronounced like the English J ; thus, young = dzhung. ("). Is not uncommon. Thus 'the open door ' = ' the (") open door.' M, N. Are often omitted when forming an end syllable : e.g. uncomm', worn'. Vowels. The Danish accent is heard most strongly in the vowels. A 1 . Casks = cu 2 sks. A 2 . In the country towns becomes O 2 or O 1 . Thus, fault = fo 2 lt, cause = ko 2 ze, law = lo 2 , all = o 2 ll. 00. The modified u is generally substituted for the English vowel. Too = tii, who = hii. And so also in the shorter form of the vowel u, good = giid, took = tiik. A 3 . Occasionally becomes A 1 , thus ga 3 ther = ga 1 hther, ha 3 nd = ha 1 hnd ; but far more often A 3 becomes E 2 : have = he 2 v, shall = she 2 ll, angry = e 2 ngry. 1 1 . Sir is pronounced sa 5 r, or like the German l sehr.' 1 2 . As usual, is too much like E 1 . 1 . One of the strongest characteristics of the Danish accent : O 1 becomes U 2 . Thus, not = nu 2 t, shone = shu 2 n, novel = nu 2 vvel, bonnet = bu 2 nnet, stop = stu 2 p, College = cu 2 llege. U 2 . Either A 3 or (rarely) A 1 . Thus, Bunker = ba 3 nker, some = sa 3 m, upon = a 3 pu 2 n, but = ba j ht. OI. Is pronounced I 3 , e.g. boy = by, point = pi s nt, noise = ni 3 ze. 66 The Pronunciation of English. FINLAND. The accent of Finland has many Scandinavian characteristics, but with certain well marked differ- ences. D, T. Terminal D is often elided : * and music ' = am'csik, London = Lun'un. G, K, Q. The tongue is put too far forward for Q, and the lips are not brought together sufficiently. Quite = k'oo-i 3 te. Z, S. Frequently S is pronounced Z, but terminal S is weak and the sign of the plural often inaudible. Sh, Ch, J. June is often pronounced Yune, etc. This is simple inadvertence, there being no difficulty in giving the correct sound ; but it is a very common mistake. r, r. R. Th, Th. Are often pronounced as S, Z, or D. Also Th is confused with Th. Other = o a zer = oMer = u 2 der, instead of u 2 the 2 r. L. Little = li'l. V, F. V is dropped at the end of a word, and becomes W in other positions. * The colour of the vulture ' = * de colour o' de wulture.' W. Is entirely without fricative force, being reduced to a mere vowel : ( a pound a week ' becomes * a pound a 'oo-eek ' ; ' every one ' = ewery > oo-u 1 n ; was = oo-o 1 ^ {"). Is occasionally heard. NG. The wrong form is often used, and in addition the following quite impossible pronunciation : l dignified ignorance ' = ' ding-yified ing-yorance. J National Characteristics. 67 Vowels. Some of the chief differences occur in the vowels. A 2 . Is either O 1 or O 2 . Thus : all = o 1 !!, taught = to 2 t. 00. Is generally the modified vowel ii. A 3 . Is either E 2 or U 2 ; e.g. have = he 2 v, man = mu 2 n. A 4 . Has the double sound: table = ta 4 y-u 2 ble, lane = Ia 4 y-u 2 n. O 2 . Is very characteristic. Go = ga 2 , no = na 2 , old = a 2 ld, coach = ka 2 tch, shoulders = showlders. A 5 . Hair = ha 4 y-e 2 r. I 1 . Deserve = deza 5 rv. 1. Is invariably too long: pin = pe 1 n. 6. Becomes u 2 : what = 'oo-u 2 t. In several cases I found the same tendency to add an obscure vowel i 1 to every word ending with a con- sonant that is the national characteristic of Italy (which see, p. 76). TEUTONIC CHARACTERISTICS. -GERMANY. The number of examples was so large as to necessitate their classification by States, no fewer than 112 towns beside country places being represented. But although certain general tendencies could be traced in the pro- nunciation of English by people living in different parts of the Empire, they were not nearly so definite as I had anticipated, showing that the influence of local characteristics is largely neutralized by uniformity of standard in the teaching. B, P. B pronounced as B; e.g. cab = cap, mob=:mop. Examples occurred in Bavaria, W. Prussia, Saxony, Schleswig. P pronounced as B; e.g. pen=ben, parcel =barcel : in Baden, frequently; also occasionally in Westphalia. P = B and B = P : Berlin. 68 The Pronunciation of English* D, T. T is very generally pronounced as D, and occasion- ally D becomes T ; e.g. night = nide, rode = rote, bottle = boddle, spoke in measured tones = in measured dones, dead = det, good = goot. Examples occurred mainly in the North, where also there is a strong tend- ency to omit D in ' London ' and 'under' = Lon'on and un'er, and to pronounce affected = affect'. Baden and Saxony afforded frequent examples of all these errors. G, K, Q. G = K, programme = pro 1 kra 3 m, big = bik, flags = flaks, gleam = kleam. Bavaria, Berlin, E. Prussia, Saxony, Silesia. K = G: companion = gompanion, uncle = ungle, cry = gry. Examples from Baden, Hesse, Rhein, Schleswig, Westphalia. Q=K'w. A very general error, the only district from which examples were not noted being Baden. X. Pronounced as simple S. Thus, extinguish, exact, explain = estinguish, ezakt, esplain. Berlin. Z, S. Three errors are very general throughout the country. One is the substitution of Z for S. Thus : said = zed, fancy = fanzy. (N.B. In English C never has the sound of Z.) Another is the omission of s and es at the end of words, thus : senses = sens', things = thing'. And the third is the hard weak S resulting from the placing of the tongue too near the edge of the teeth, the S so produced being inaudible at a little distance, so that speech becomes peach, storm = torm, etc. Sh, Ch, J. The pronunciation of Ch as Sh is fairly common and should be easily remedied. In the North J is occasionally sounded as Y ; simply because the English custom has not been realized. From Bavaria, Hesse, and W. Prussia I had instances National Characteristics. 69 of the substitution of Ch for J or G. Thus : gin = chin, judge = tshu 2 tch, barge = bartsh. And the opposite error occurred in Baden and Saxony, thus : rich = ridge, chink = jink. In Westphalia the Sh had in some cases a peculiarly guttural character, examples of which occasionally were to be found in Berlin. r, r. See p. 17. The errors noted occur in all parts of Germany. I had examples of the substitution of d or r from the Rhine Provinces. This I regard as a re- grettable error in teaching (e.g. to-morrow = to-moddow). R. Is very generally replaced by the guttural H in all parts of the Empire. The percentage of guttural Hs was smallest in Baden. Th, Th. When correctly pronounced, the voiced Th is often substituted for the whispered Th and vice versa. This is to be remedied by a diligent use of the pro- nouncing dictionary. Th = Z, Th = s; e.g. that = zat, something = somsing; a very general error not confined to any one part. Th = D and Th = T ; e.g. that = dat, thing = ting, occurred sometimes in Westphalia and W. Prussia. V, F. V is frequently pronounced as W, thus : survey = sur-ooey, provoke = prowoke ; but there were some cases in Berlin where V was sounded as F, thus : above = abo 1 ff. W. Is very generally a mere vowel. See p. 20. ("). Is most common in Saxony and Prussia, but is found all over the Empire. H. Was omitted in the Rhine Provinces only. Hovered = 'o^ered. NG. The repetition of the sound of hard G, so char- acteristic of Austria and Hungary, is also met with occasionally in Schleswig and Prussia. 70 The Pronunciation of English. M, N. The slurring of the last syllable in German, human, woman, etc. ( = Germ', hum', worn') is most common in the North of Germany. A' 2 . There is a general tendency to pronounce A 2 as A 1 , thus : al^a^l, rarely = o 1 ll. 00. The modified vowel ii is used instead of oo in Schleswig, and I have found cases of it in Hesse. Thus : too = tii, move = miive. E 1 . A certain number of people all over the country pronounce this vowel much longer than we do in English. A 3 . Throughout the whole of Germany there is a tend- ency to substitute E 2 for A 3 ; thus : man = me 2 n, hat = he 2 d, bad = be 2 d, angry = e 2 ngry or frequently e-ng-ry. In Silesia sometimes bat (flitter-maus) = bu 2 t, and in Westphalia Harry = Ha 1 h-re 1 curiously enough the way the villagers in Berkshire pronounce the name when calling to each other. More often it was pro- nounced Hu 2 rry by Germans. E 2 . Correct, except in the North from Friesland to W. Prussia, where it tends towards A 3 ; thus : bet = ba 3 t, very = va 3 ry or vaV or va 1 re 1 , ferry = fa 3 rry. Also in Saxony. I 1 ! 1 . Almost everywhere 'her' is pronounced like the English 'hair' or the German Herr. Similarly Sir = Sa 5 r ( = sehr), person = pairson. IPr. In Schleswig I found purse = pa 1 hse probably an attempt to correct the other error and in Westphalia I found work = wa 2 -i 1 k, this being most likely due to an American teacher. I 2 . All over the Empire there is a tendency to pronounce I 2 too long. 1 . There is also a very general tendency to substitute U 2 for O 1 . Thus : not = nu 2 t, stop = stu 2 p, etc. Itisnot National Characteristics* yr however so marked as in Denmark. The pronuncia- tion of wanted=wa 2 nted, which I occasionally came across, was probably American. U 2 . The most common error is to pronounce either U 2 as O 1 e.g. above =abo 1 ff, wonder=wander, or U 2 as A 3 , e.g. up=a 3 p, crumbling=:cra 3 mbling, once=wa 3 n-z, some=sa 3 m. Occasionally in Berlin we have but=ba 1 ht, and in Pomerania much=-me 2 ch. This also is found in E. Prussia. A 4 . In E. Prussia this was pronounced with the double sound, e.g. break = bra 4 y-u 2 k as in Scandinavian countries. In Bavaria and Saxony it lost almost entirely the character of a glide, made becoming me 2 hd and pails =pe 3 hlz, i.e. a short E 2 drawn out. I 3 . Was frequently pronounced more as a diphthong than as a glide. Thus light became Ia 2 -e 1 t almost Ia 1 h-e 1 e 1 t, and pipe=pa 1 h-eep. There were no corrections noted from Bavaria. It seemed to me that those who simply used the vowel sound they have in 'Sonnenschein ' without trying to produce anything specially ' English ' did best. O 2 . Was made too much of a diphthong, the elements being O 1 - oo in Westphalia and Berlin, and A 3 - ou-oo, in Baden, where coal had almost the sound of cowl (i.e. ko 2 l=koul). And O 2 -oo in the Rhine Provinces, where the vowel sound was correct, but drawled too^ much. In Schleswig, Saxony, and Hesse there was a tendency to substitute A 2 or O 1 for O 2 . Thus, suppose =suppa 2 z, alone=ala 2 n, moment=zma 2 ment, nobody =no 1 body, known = no 1 n, host = ho 1 st. A 5 . The pronunciation a 4 -i j r instead of a 3 -i 1 r is practic- ally universal ; hair becomes ha 4 y-er, declare =* decla 4 y-er. 72 The Pronunciation of English, OU. Is correctly given in many places. For the rest the errors are similar to those found in England among untrained speakers, i.e. either the diphthong begins on a too broad a sound, howl becoming ha 1 h-ool, or it is prefaced by a short E 2 , thus : now = ne 2 aou, as in many country places. OI. I found ' boy ' was sometimes pronounced ' by ' in Schleswig. This is probably due to Scandinavian influence. In Westphalia OI was sometimes replaced by A 2 , thus : point = pa 2 nt. U 4 . Is very generally correct, save when the modified ii is substituted for it. But there are some persistent mistakes. Enthusiasm must not be pronounced enthoosiasm save by those who wish to acquire the Cockney pronunciation. To say yewer for your suggests to the English ear, America ; and to say y'have or y'ave for you have, or y'are for you are, takes us back to the time of Shakespeare. The proper modern contractions are you 've and you 're preserv- ing the vowel sound of the first word and eliding that of the second. AUSTRIA. B, P. Are often confused. Pleasant = bleasant, etc. D, T. D is weak after N, and terminal -ed is omitted. Under = un'ner, regarded = regard'. T becomes D, e.g. tutor = dutor. G, K, Q. G and K are substituted for each other. Thus : gigantic = chi 3 kantik ; ' take the key ' = ta 4 g th' ghe 1 . Q = k'w, quite = k'wa 1 -e 1 t. Z, S. Substituted for each other. Result = ressult ; also National Characteristics. 73 r, r. Very often omitted after P or B, and guttural after G. Worried = 'oo-u 2 -ooi 2 d. R. Correctly trilled by about one in four, doubtful in as many, guttural in the rest. Th, Th. Very often confused, e.g. Thank you = dhang'k you. Also TH = D, Z, or S. This thing = ziss sing. V, F. V is often weak or pronounced as W. Venture = wenture. {"). I encountered a good many instances of the glottal catch. NG. The pronunciation of NG is the most noteworthy characteristic of Austria and of Hungary. The nasal passage is momentarily closed, giving the sound of a hard G after the NG in all cases; e.g. going-g up, being-g reminded, growing-g your cress, among-g villas (Pilsen), ceiling-g of a room. Occasionally also 'ignor- ant thing ' = ing-yorant thing-k. A 1 . Sometimes nasalized, e.g. part. A 2 . All = 0^ (Pilsen). OCX Modified ii substituted. Thus foot-stool = fut-stiihl. A 3 . Generally A 3 = E 2 , but sometimes A 3 = 0^ Hand = he 2 nd, act = e 2 kt, narrow = no 1 rro 2 . 1 1 . Sir = sa 5 r ( = sehr). 1 2 . Is made too long : admit = adme 1 t. 1 . Becomes A 3 or U 2 . Not = na 3 t or nu 2 t, blossom = blu 2 ssum. 1 3 . Is somewhat drawled : might = ma 1 h-e 1 e 1 t. 2 . Is variously pronounced ; frequently short O 1 as noble = no 1 ble, stroke = stro 1 ^ only = o 1 nly. Sometimes A 2 as own = a 2 n, going = ga 2 ing, groan =gra 2 n. But I found that some of those who had most difficulty with this vowel had a perfect example of the way it is sounded in English in their own word for oven 'ofen.' 74 The Pronunciation of English. Let me advise you all to try to find in your own pro- nunciation of your own language any examples there may be of vowels perfectly identical with English vowels. Sometimes in a dialect of your own language you may find such sounds. It would be useless for me to attempt to find any that would hold good for all of you. I cannot say whether every Austrian pronounces the O of ' ofen ' as I pronounce the O 2 of * no,' but those who do so may take it as their own standard for that vowel. This is the kind of thing you may learn best in England. SWITZERLAND. B, P. There was a tendency to substitute the voiceless letter : Big = pig. G, K, Q. Quite = k'vite or g'ooite. Z, S. Sometimes S = Z. 'Buy some stamps ' = 'buy zum zdamps.' Sometimes S is thin and weak or omitted, thus : scramble = cramble, spread = pread, broker's shop = broker shop. Ch, Sh, J. Gentleman = chentl'm'n (frequently), journey = je-urne, church = che-urch, j = ch. r, r. These sounds correctly produced by about half those tested. Omitted or slurred by the rest. Very = vaV, almost va 1 *. R. Correctly trilled by about half, guttural in the rest. Th, Th. Variously pronounced. Th = D or Z, 7% = S> Th confused with Th. ' The ' = ze 1 . L. Weak : thus, table = ta 4 bl' or ta 4 b'. V, F. F substituted for V. Have = haf, etc. W. Pronounced correctly by some, but in the majority of cases either weak or a simple vowel = 'OO. NG. Mispronounced through carelessness. National Characteristics* 75 Vowels. Vowels frequently nasalized as in French. In plural words or between M and N the vowel E 2 is omitted, thus : senses = sens', woman = worn', Mrs. = Miss, instead of Mi 2 se 2 z. A 2 . Becomes O 2 : all = o 2 !, taught = to 2 t. A 3 . Handsome = he 2 nsu 2 m, man = me 2 n. 1 1 . Sir = Sa 5 r (as in share). 1 2 . Too long, e.g. pin = pe 1 n. 1 . Not = nu 2 t, gone = gu 2 n. 2 . Only = a 2 nlee, suppose = su 2 ppa 2 z. HOLLAND. The number of cases was too small for a complete analysis. D, T. A tendency to substitute D for T. Z, S. Also Z for S. Sh. Differs somewhat from the English sound. Th, Th. The voiceless Th very seldom used Very often Z is substituted for both. W. Is almost entirely a vowel. A 2 . Becomes A 3 ; e.g. water = wa 3 tter. E 2 . Becomes U 2 : settle himself =su 2 ttle hu 2 msu 2 lf. O 1 . Becomes U 2 : common = ku 2 mmu 2 n. FRANCE. The characteristic accent by which we recognize a French- man has not so much to do with pronunciation as with rhythm. B, P. Are occasionally confused, but more I think by accident than for any phonetic reason. 76 The Pronunciation of English. D, T. The end syllable of such words as effected, melted, etc., is often left out, the words being pronounced effect', melt', with a slight pause after the t. This is due to an attempt to pronounce d after t without inserting the vowel. It arises from an error in teaching. Z, S. Terminal S is often omitted, and the S in general is thin and weak, the tip of the tongue being placed too near the edge of the teeth. Sh, Ch, J. Ch is pronounced like Sh ; and the soft G, or English J, like Zh or the French J ; e.g., chicken = shicken, genius = zhenius. r, r. Sometimes correct, but generally omitted by those who use the guttural H ; e.g., prompt = p'ompt, true = t'ue, groups = g'oups, very = ve'y. R. Correct in about half the cases, guttural in the rest. Th, Th. Always a difficult sound. Is pronounced T, or D, or S. Thousands = t'ousands, though = do 2 , worth seeing = wors' seeing, etc. L. Little people = litl' peopP. W. In some cases fairly good, in others a simple vowel : 'oo. H. Often a great difficulty. Hot = 'ot. Vowels. The vowels as a rule are only accidentally wrong, there being seldom any difficulty in pronouncing them. Occasion- ally some of them are nasalized. Sir is pronounced Sa 5 re, and the short I 2 is not made short enough. ITALY. I have not had a large enough number of students from Italy to warrant a very detailed analysis of the national characteristics. Among those I have come across were National Characteristics, 77- cases in which T was pronounced as D. In common with the French they tend to omit H; thus: have = 'ave. On the other hand the W is fairly good, and they had much less difficulty in pronouncing it as the English do. R was, in some cases guttural, and in others correct, and the same may be said of r and r. NG and GN were subject to. uncertainty, but this is hardly to be wondered at in view of the special pronunciation of GN in Italian, which does not exist in English, save in Signer and two or three other words directly taken from the Italian. The most striking characteristic consists in the addition, of an obscure vowel i or -er to every word ending in a consonant, giving it an extra syllable. Sometimes this vowel is even inserted between two consonants in the middle of a word, thus : ' sometimes ' acquires the sound of ' summertimes.' I have been assured by Italian teachers of English that this is one of the greatest diffi- culties with beginners. For this reason Italians should practise diligently the exercise on p. 53. RUSSIA. Russia is too big a country for one type of pronunciation to be characteristic of the whole of it. What I have ta say, therefore, must be understood as applying only to the people I have come in contact with and the places from which they came. B, P. B is often substituted for P and P for B. D, T. These letters are often confused and D or T after N is often left out: e.g., Wonderful = won'erful, don't notice = don' notice. G, K, Q. K is frequently pronounced G. Thus wicked = wigged. Quite = k'wite. 78 The Pronunciation of English. Z, S. In some cases all the sibillants were good in others S was thin and weak. Thus, stately = 'tately v In several S = th (lisping). .Sh, Ch, J. Occasionally shook = she^ook (a Scandinavian characteristic). ir, r. As a rule good. Rarely guttural or elided. R. Trill good rarely guttural, but they could always give the English trilled R also. Th, Th. Often th = s, th = z ; e.g. the sun = ze sun, birth- day = birsday. V, F. In the middle of a word V = W; at the end it is omitted. Servant = Serwant, visit = wisit (a Scandin- avian characteristic). "W. Correctly pronounced by a few. For the most W = 'oo, twenty = too-e-nty. .("). The glottal catch is strong in Kurland. NG. Pronunciation uncertain : dignified = ding-yified. MN. The last syllable in such words as human and moment is frequently slurred, = hum', mom't. Vowels. The following errors were recorded : A 1 . Large = Ia 2 rge. A' 2 . Pronounced either O 1 or O 2 . E 1 . Beast = bi' 2 st. A 3 . Very generally A 3 = E 2 ; e.g. fact = fe%t, as = e 2 z. E 2 . Frequently becomes U 2 , as tell = tu' 2 ll. 1 1 . Thirty = tha s i 1 rty. But very often work is pronounced like walk. I have observed this peculiarity also among French students. 1 2 . Is usually too long : crippled = cre 1 e 1 pled. U 2 . Rugged is pronounced like ragged. National Characteristics. 79 A 4 . Lady becomes Ie 2 ddy. O 2 . Very generally pronounced as A 2 ; e.g. home ha 2 m, hole = ha 2 ll, smoke = sma 2 k. But in Moscow no' 2 = no 1 !), known = no!n, o 2 ver = o 1 ver, etc. A 5 . Share = sha 4 -i 1 r instead of sha 3 -! 1 ^ OU. Often pronounced, probably by mistake, like O 2 ; e.g., now = no 2 . POLISH. The Polish rhythm resembles that of the French, The principal errors of pronunciation are in the long vowels, which are foreign to the language. D, T. T is weak or pronounced as D; London = Lon'on. G, K, Q. In several cases K was omitted in such sentences as 'broke the silence ' = ' bro' the silence.' :Sh, Ch, J. J was pronounced as Y. r and r. Were both correct. R. The trill is strong and correct. Th, Th. Is weak before other consonants. L. Little = littl'. W. Usually fairly correct. NG. Sometimes the hard G is sounded after the NG in cases where it should be silent. (Compare Austria.) A 2 . Becomes either O 1 orO 2 ; thus: talk = to%, all = o 2 ll or o 1 !], corner = ko 2 ner. OO. Rubies = ru 2 bbies. E 1 . Sleep = sli 2 p. 'O 1 . Becomes U 2 ; e.g. was not = wu 2 z nu 2 t. *U 2 . Sometimes pronounced as A 3 ; thus : bunker = ba 2 nker. .A 4 . Either pronounced I 3 or A 3 ; thus : made = mi 3 de, favour = fa 3 vo 1 r. 80 The Pronunciation of English. O 2 . Becomes either O 1 or A 2 ; thus: nobody = no 1 bo 1 dy, no = no 1 h, own = a 2 n. This last is curious, because Poles have a difficulty with the sound of A 2 in such words as all and water and talk, and yet some of the same people pronounce it quite correctly instead of O 2 . Probably it is due to mistaken instructions in print. On the dangers of a faulty pronunciation. A middle-aged lady, riding in the dark, fell from her bicycle. A policeman approaching, enquired if she was hurt. To whom she replied : " Thank you, I am all right only a little bruised." She was immediately arrested and spent the night in the cells. On the morrow the magistrate, after briefly examining the witnesses, discharged her with the recommendation to perfect her pronunciation of English. What mistake did she make ? 8i LECTURE VII. ON BREATHING. LIFE is supported, as fire is kept up, by a species of com- bustion. The food we eat, like the coal we put in the furnace, supplies heat and does work for us by combining with oxygen. Creatures that are very small can get enough oxygen from the water they live in, for water dissolves air roughly about four parts in every hundred ; but larger creatures require special organs for procuring it. The bigger the body the greater the proportion of bulk to surface. For a creature double the size, the skin has to be four times, but the weight eight times as great as before. If therefore the oxygen has to soak through the skin, it must go through twice as fast in the bigger creature. Obviously some other means must be found of getting it in, and the various ways in which this has been done form one of the most interesting topics in the whole range of physiology. One of the simplest and most familiar occurs in the case of fishes. You may watch them in an aquarium sucking water into their mouths and blowing it out behind the gill-plates. And if you examine the gills of a dead fish you will find that they resemble a series of combs, along the teeth of which delicate blood-vessels run. The water swallowed by the fish plays in strong streams through these G 82 The Pronunciation of English* combs, the blood absorbs the oxygen from it and carries it all over the body. With insects it is quite different. You cannot drown a bee or a butterfly by holding its head under water, because no insect breathes through the mouth. But it would die if you kept it under water from the waist downward, because the breathing holes are on the abdomen, one on each side to each ring. Each breathing hole is guarded by bristles to keep out smaller insects, and from it delicate branching air-tubes ramify through the body to carry oxygen to the tissues. There is a kind of Death's Head Moth, the caterpillar of which frightens the country people not only by its weird appearance, but by the uncanny grunts and groans it can emit. Some years ago Professor Poulton ascertained with a stethoscope of microscopic dimensions which I lent him for the purpose, that this creature J grunts' by suddenly expelling the air from these tubes. The wind-pipe divides in the chest into two main branches, one to the right lung, one to the left, and these again branch and divide and sub-divide like the branches of a tree, the ultimate divisions ending in little transparent air sacs, each surrounded by a delicate network of capillary blood-vessels. When we take breath, each of these thousands of air cells expands and draws air into itself, expelling it when we breathe out again. And the walls of the air sacs are so .thin, and those of the capillaries so delicate, that the oxygen of the air gets through them straight to the blood. But the body requires much more oxygen than could possibly be dissolved in the liquid of the blood, so we have the wonderful provision of the red-blood corpuscles. A drop of blood, under the microscope, is seen to contain millions of disc-shaped bodies with rather thick edges not unlike small coins. These are the red corpuscles, and they owe their On Breathing. 83 colour to a certain chemical compound called haemoglobin. Now haemoglobin sucks up oxygen as a sponge sucks up water, and gives it out again as easily ; in fact a gramme of haemoglobin can take up something like one and a third cubic centimetres of oxygen. This is carried all over the body by the flow of blood, and given out wherever it is wanted, carbon-dioxide being taken in its place and breathed out into the air. The point with which we are now concerned is how the air cells are made to expand. The lungs, with the heart, are enclosed in a bony cage formed by the back-bone, the ribs, and the breast- bone. The floor of this cage consists of a tough mem- brane called the diaphragm, which separates it from the liver, stomach, and intestines. [See Diagram, Fig. 13.] FIG. 13. Diagram showing changes of shape of lungs during breathing. When we draw breath, the muscles of the ribs raise them to the position shown by the full line in the diagram, making the cage bigger. The muscles of the diaphragm pull downwards making it deeper, and the air vessels of the 84 The Pronunciation of English* lungs are forced to expand in order to fill the additional space. When we breathe out, the ribs fall into the position shown by the dotted line, and the diaphragm muscles also relax so that the lung shrinks into a smaller volume and expels the air. The air cells themselves are elastic, and contract like so many india-rubber toy balloons, when the air is let out. What keeps them expanded is the fact that they are in a closed space the thorax into which no air can get, save that contained within the air sacs and the tubes leading to them. A rabbit's lung, preserved in glycerine and water, will show this elasticity of the air sacs very well. It can be inflated with a small pair of bellows, but collapses directly the pressure is removed. The important thing therefore is how we take breath, rather than how it escapes again. We take in breath in two ways : by raising the ribs, and by lowering the diaphragm. As a rule men favour the latter, and women the former method but singers and public speakers use both. I will explain why. You have probably heard about, if you have never ex- perienced, the dreadful sensation that comes when you stand up to face for the first time an audience, and have reached the middle of a long note or of a sentence. Just by the lower ribs and in the chest it seems to lay hold of you so that you cannot go on. Your friends say it is nervousness and will not come when you have more experience. If you do the same thing it will come to the very end of your days, for it is a provision of nature to prevent you from forgetting to breathe, and thus, for instance, dying in your sleep. When the percentage of carbon dioxide in the lungs reaches a certain point, it stimulates certain nerves On Breathing* 85 which cause the chest to expand and the diaphragm to be pulled down, so as to take more air into the lungs. What you feel is the battle between the thinking part of you that wants to go on talking and the automatic part of you that gives warning of death if you do not go on breathing. We do not as a rule breathe as deeply as we can. The quantity of air habitually breathed in and out called by the convenient name of " tidal air " varies from little more than a quarter of a litre in some persons to a full litre in others. We may take half a litre as the average. But by expanding the chest and exerting ourselves we can draw in a full litre and a half more. This is called " com- plemental air." And when all the tidal air is breathed out naturally, we can still, by an effort, force out another litre and a half which physiologists call "supplemental air," leaving perhaps another litre, or a litre and a half of " residual air." So that altogether the lungs hold at their fullest four and a half 01 five litres of air, of which some people habitually use less than one-tenth part for breathing with. Can you wonder that when they stand up to speak the oxygen is all used up before they get through the first sentence? After the " tidal " air is gone they try to get to the end of the sentence on the supplemental air. But there is this difference : when you come to the end of your supple- mental air you have also come to the end of your oxygen, and you always begin to feel uncomfortable ; whereas if you speak with the complemental air you have still the tidal air to go on with, and you do not feel any discomfort until that is used up. Always therefore, in speaking, fill your lungs take in as much complemental air as you comfortably can, and take breath as soon as you come to the end of the tidal air * 86 The Pronunciation of English. reserving the supplemental air strictly for unforeseen emer- gencies. Consider now the difficulties placed by foolish fashions in the way of the speaker and the singer. Round the upper part of the thorax is hung what is known as the " shoulder girdle " supporting the arms, i.e., the shoulder bones at the back, and the collar-bones reaching from the upper part of each shoulder-bone to the top of the breast-bone in front, where the space between the two ends of them constitutes what is known as the "salt-cellar." But observe that this is no solid ring of bone like that provided for the leg-bones. The muscles of the arms pull on the cage containing the lungs which must be continually expanding and contracting as we breathe. If then we cramp the position of the arms we cramp the action of the lungs. Fashion sometimes decrees that man or woman is cor- rectly dressed only when the throat is enclosed in a tight collar of white linen as stiff and hard as the shell of a lobster's claw. How is the larynx, with its delicate mechanism, to move up and down within this rigid case without being bruised and chafed and hurt ? People laughed at Mr. Gladstone's collars but they did not press upon the front of his throat. The coat that fits without a wrinkle because the stuff is stretched equally tight all over you, may be an ideal fit for the parade ground, but it is terribly bad for the voice the man who wears it can only breathe with his diaphragm. The small waist drawn in to how many inches may I venture on? may almost attain the high standard of the fashion plate, but it effectually precludes diaphragm breathing. On Breathing. 87 Sometimes a very small thing makes all the difference, as for instance, when a man's coat is so cut that the strain comes on the top button when he expands his chest. Sometimes it is the speaker's own fault a question of attitude rather than of clothes. The older ones among you have probably often seen the old-fashioned way of teaching a class of school-girls to repeat poetry. " Stand straight, young ladies heads up, chins in, heels together, hands by your sides touching your knees and don't shrug your shoulders ! " And so, stiff and rigid, with the shoulder-girdle pressing the ribs downwards, they were made to recite. Compare that with the action of a singer or a great orator only remember that as the highest art conceals all art you may have to watch very closely to perceive it he steps, forward, lifts his head, raises the shoulder girdle to take the weight off his lungs, lets it sink naturally into position, and begins. In colloquial English, he shrugs his shoulders. Another position equally bad was favoured a good deal by the Board Schools. The children were taught to put one arm behind their backs and clasp the other arm just above the elbow. This throws the point of the shoulder forward and puts the shoulder-blade in an unnatural position. The first rule is : Let the clothes be easy about the throat; the upper part of the body, and the waist, so as to allow of perfectly free action, and before you speak raise the shoulder girdle, fill your lungs, and begin with the con> plemental air. Secondly, remember the old maxim. Don't trouble about the rich people in the front row, but speak to the old woman in the far corner of the gallery the one who has got her mouth open. If you can bring a smile to her face you need not be afraid that the front row will not hear. The Pronunciation of English. The third rule is : Speak slowly. Remember what I told you about the echoes in a large room. Even when the pictures are up so to speak and the curtains hung when the room is full of people there is sure to be some kind of echo. Every syllable you utter will be prolonged into a continuous sound, and people cannot distinguish a second syllable until the echoes of the first have finished. The bigger the room the more deliberate your speech must be. Observe my choice of words deliberate I did not say 11 the longer your speech must take." I have heard people address a large audience in this way : "Thechairmanhasaskedme . . . tosayafewwords . . . totellyouhowpleased . . . lamtosee . . . somanyhappyfaces . . . before me." That may do for writing from dictation, but it is not speaking deliberately. Each separate syllable must be big and separate, and the voice must be big too. Many people have voices much bigger than they think, but they don't know how to use them. I have heard young ladies in the drawing-room sing sentimental songs with such small voices that the accom- paniment drowned them with the soft pedal down ; and I have heard those same girls in the tennis court say II Fault ! Love-thirty " in tones which could be heard a hundred yards away. I told you in an earlier lecture how to open your mouths how to put the tongue down and use the full volume of the mouth for speaking. When people are out of doors, calling and talking to each other from a distance in the open air, they do this unconsciously. It is generally not until they begin to think about it that they speak badly. Five minutes' practice in a large room with a good teacher will do"more for the voice than many pages of On Breathing:. 89 printed instructions, and I shall therefore merely content myself with saying that any one in ordinary health ought to be able to make an audience of two hundred people hear easily, once the proper way of using the voice has been learnt. Practise using the full power of your voice in reading aloud. But in giving this advice I must warn you against a worse mistake. To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven a time to speak, and a time to be silent. You can do nothing that will stamp your conversation more definitely as un-English, than to converse loudly in the streets. It belongs just as much to the English nature as the th does to our pronunciation, to talk quietly in public. You can't annoy an Englishman more easily than by calling him by name across the road. He puts you down at once as a person who has not learnt the conventions of polite society. To talk loudly out of doors savours of 'Arry and 'Arriet on a Bank Holiday. It is too terrible to think of your being led to do it in innocence through my advice ta practise the full power of your voice. Yet perhaps English people are often scarcely fair in the way they talk to you. I think it was Charles Dickens who- first noticed that the majority of people talk to foreigners as if they were deaf. The very natural result is that foreigners answer in the same key, and so insensibly get the habit of loud talking. It is not exactly their fault. Observe what happens the next time you are in a mixed assembly. An Englishman is introduced to a group of foreigners he converses in full resonant tones. Presently someone else is introduced, and the first man turns to some 90 The Pronunciation of English, of his own countrymen, and they talk together in a much lower tone of voice. That is what you should copy the ordinary pitch of the voice in conversation the other is only put on, because you are supposed not to understand quite easily. The low-toned voice has its advantages. You can enjoy conversation much more in a room, or at table, if people do not talk loudly. There is, I believe, a difference of national custom in respect of voice-tones. I was told many years ago by a Belgian Professor in a town much frequented by foreigners from all countries, that the Spanish visitors talked more loudly than any. You could tell them, he said, at a distance, by the sound of their conversation. Unfortu- nately I had no opportunity of observing for myself. And I have heard people say that English tourists talk too loudly. One must not, however, forget that a tourist may be denned as a person who " takes his prejudices abroad and leaves his manners at home," so that we cannot judge a nation by what we see of them under such circumstances. Still, most of us hope we shall never be mistaken for tourists ! My advice therefore is : In class and when in private you are practising what we teach, speak out with the full power of your voice. Even though you never need to teach, learn to use your voice properly, because it is the one and only way of learning to pronounce accurately. A mumbling voice may hide its deficiencies from the teacher, but that is the most foolish thing it is possible to do. If you can speak without any foreign accent to a large audience, be quite sure your accent will be perfect in conversation. Learn therefore to read English aloud to an audience of two hundred so that all can hear, and cultivate the art of talking to two of them without disturbing the other hundred and ninety-eight. LECTURE VIII. ACCENTS. * THE spoken language has a foreign sound, though every consonant and vowel may be articulated in the most perfect manner, if some word is accented on the wrong syllable. For this kind of error there is but one cure Persever- ance and a Pronouncing Dictionary. Your teacher and your friends may, and ought to, pull you up when you make a slip, and so in time weed out your faults, but the misplaced accent is a kind of error you can correct for yourself, and your teacher's time should be reserved for more important things. Get a big Dictionary, the most expensive you can afford, with idioms and examples and illustrations, and let it be your rule that for every page you read you will look up ten words at least. If there are not ten words that you do not know, make up the number with words you do know, and read all that is written about them. You will be astonished at the progress you will make with three months of this kind of work. Then your teacher's time can be saved for the far more important purpose I am about to describe. For though you pronounce like a native and accent with the correctness of a lexicographer, still if your sentence have not the swing about it, and your voice have not the inflections of the native, your words are those of an alien and your speech is foreign. 9 2 The Pronunciation of English. The rhythm of the native sentence the tone of the native voice these are what you must aim at. And the way to get them is to enter into the spirit of the native thought. I am speaking now not merely as an Englishman to foreigners, but rather as a linguist to students of language. I would advise my own countrymen to do the same in learning your language. Read the great masters of literature and poetry. Listen to the great orators, preachers, statesmen, actors ; cultivate the friendship of the people of the land, sympathize with their hopes, their difficulties, and their ambitions ; join in their work and in their recreation, and the native accent will come to you. And if I am able to shorten this process a little for you it is because in these ten years so many of you have come to live the College life which is the life of the larger family with us, that I have learnt to some extent the mode in which your thought differs from our thought. This singular conclusion has been borne in on me : that to express the laws of emphasis as I would express them for an Englishman would be of little use to you, because in the construction of our language we have many words that seem of no importance to you, and you pass them by, and conversely we pass lightly over words which you accent. And there are many words on which we lay no emphasis they do not require any but which you oftea pass over in such a casual way, with such curious effect to an English ear, that I have realized the existence in our language of two kinds of accent, namely the ordinary ' Stress accent > emphasized by the voice, and this which I will call the 'Time accent' emphasized by the time spent in Accents* 93 pronouncing the word. There is no stress whatever on the 'Time accent' save in special circumstances. When you are reading in class you should mark the accents as you hear them. For the ' stress ' I use an ordinary acute accent ; for the ' Time accent ' I underline the syllable, and for some few words which would be accented in your own language, but on which you should specially avoid putting an accent in English, I use brackets. Mark your books in this way. Write also in the margins any special notes that may be given ; we always arrange so that you can buy cheap editions for this purpose. A book so maiked will bring back to your mind years afterwards not merely the bare facts but the tones of the lecturer's voice : the sound of the voices of the rest of the class : the past will live again to you and it will keep your accent For tuning a voice to the accent of a country is some- thing like tuning a piano. However well it has been done, however fine an instrument you possess, it is better to go over it from time to time. TIME ACCENT. So, too, same. It is so surprising. I too could tell a tale. It is the same man. Demonstratives have the time accent, but not relatives. Shut up that dog (that) barks. Observe that this is not the emphatic accent, which occurs as follows : Which dog ? That dog. The words very, far er than, such, much, have the time .accent, but, strange to say, not ' as,' thus : Is he much yoiinger than you ? No, just (as) 61d, but far stronger. 94 The Pronunciation of English. These accents seem so natural to us that I did not realize their existence until I heard the curious effect produced when foreigners omit them. Of course emphasis may be given to the preceding sentence if the meaning requires //, thus : 'Is he much younger than you?' but that is additional to the time accent. STRESS ACCENT : LOGICAL. Every fresh idea has a fresh accent. The second time an idea is referred to it is merely men- tioned and has no accent. If an accent is put where there should be none, an open- ing is afforded for an absurd question, by suggesting the opposite of the word accented. If the accent is left out, the question ' what ? ' can be asked of the previously accented word. Example: 'Give you a reason on compulsion? If reasons were (as) plenty (as) blackberries I would give no man a reason on compulsion.' Observe that there must be no accent of any kind on the two words in brackets, although a German would naturally put them there : ' More plentiful (than),' or 'less plentiful (than),' but '(as) plentiful (as).' If the accent on blackberries were omitted we could ask 'as plentiful as what ? ' If an accent were put on c man ' (which corresponds to 'you' in the previous clause), then the question would be, ' Would you give it to a woman ? ' If an accent were put on ; reason,' the listener might ask, ' Would you on com- pulsion give him half-a-crown ? ' The one apparent exception to these rules is the word ' compulsion,' which occurs four times in the speech and has an accent each time. But that is the central idea of the speech, and he puts it in a new light each time. Accents* 95 NEGATIVES. Every negative is a new idea, because it completely reverses some positive statement. It must therefore have an accent. But we require to know what it is we have to reverse,, therefore the positive must also be accented unless it has. already been mentioned. NEGATIVE WORDS. Sometimes both negative and positive are contained in. the same word, in which case it has two accents, linconscious indestructible noncommittal disagreeable. Some other compound words, in which a particle intro- duces a modification of meaning, e.g. intertwine, transfor- mation. But the dictionary must be consulted, for if a word has been in the language a long while, and if the positive has dropped out of use, only one accent is retained. Thus we have 'jiistice' 'injustice,' but 'injury' with- one accent, because 'jury' is not the positive of it. Again, 'infinite' is the opposite of ' finite,' but has only one accent because c finite ' is a comparatively recent word in much less general use : ' impudent ' is a word of nega- tive form with only one accent, and it is the same with ' indolent.' But these words have no positive. COMPOUND WORDS. When first introduced these generally have an accent on* each component, but after a while in many cases one accent is dropped. Thus 'hydraulic press,' 'steam tram,' ' m6tor car ' ; but ' printing-press,' ' steam-engine.' For the first year or two after the word was invented, as long as people remembered that it meant ' two wheels,'' 96 The Pronunciation of English. bicycle was pronounced bi-cycle, with two accents, the Y being pronounced as in my. Names of people have an accent on each Christian name or initial and on the surname. Names of places have an accent on each component except ' street,' * Banbury Road,' 'New Road,' 'Westminster Bridge Road,' 'Wor- cester Place,' 'Cavendish Square'; but 'Broad Street,' ' Hythe Bridge Street,' ' Long Wall Street.' But wherever the purpose of the speaker is to contrast one thing or action with another the normal accents may be strengthened or dropped as required. Thus, ' Shall I fold the newspaper ? ' ' No, I prefer it unfolded.' But if there were no contrast : ' Please dnfold the paper.' Sometimes an accent may be placed where otherwise none would exist, as in the classic instance of Jacob's dream : ' Behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven, and behold the angels of God ascending and descending upon it.' And in this connection it may be remarked that in upstairs, downstairs, and down town, the stronger accent is on the secc J word unless they are contrasted, when it is transferred to the first. ' Cape wine,' like ' port wine,' has two accents in English, but I find most Germans consider the second superfluous. Amid a good deal that seems arbitrary there is a certain consistency in the use of these accents which may entitle them to be called ' logical.' STRESS- ACCENT : IDIOMATIC OR CONVENTIONAL. There is another set of accents which no foreigner could be expected to know. Certain auxiliaries to the verb have in some sentences a meaning and a weight far in excess of that they usually bear. If you tried to paraphrase the sentence these mono- Accents* 9 7 syllables would have to be replaced by words of three or four syllables. Consequently, if we retain them, they must be reinforced by an extra idiomatic accent, e.g. : "Taking all things into consideration, I will say this I do not see how he could have done otherwise." Ordinarily the accents would be " I will say this," but that does not express the concession. Substitute the paraphrase and you have " I [am prepared to] say [iritis much]/' The idiomatic accent puts this stress on the shorter words. Again : ; I do think it hard that it should rain every Sunday.' The word 'do' stands for 'really,' and is much stronger than usual. Again : ' I had to tell him I felt grieved ' the word 1 had ' is in place of ' felt compelled.' Other short words may receive added intensity of meaning : " I did not know he had it in him," i.e., that it belonged to his nature. " If he keeps at it he will make seven shillings a day." To keep at a thing = to persevere. But here the arbitrary nature of an idiom comes in, " If he keeps at work he will, but not if he keeps at home." The German idiom differs from the English in this respect, and hence many mistakes arise. In German, when a verb with a separable particle is followed by a noun to which the verb refers, the particle takes the accent. In English the noun takes il, but it goes to the particle if the noun does not follow, or if there is no noun. " Lift up your bag and put it on the table. Lift your bag lip and put it on the table." " We put up at the inn, but the accommodation was so bad we could not piit tip with it." " Tiirn on the light again," but " Turn the light on again." " Mrs. Wilfer tie'd up her head and came out for a walk. (Foreigners generally read this "tied up her head and came out for a walk.") H 98 The Pronunciation of English. Sometimes a different accent gives a different meaning. "I may go away again," expresses uncertainty. "Ask if I may .go away again," requests permission. "There were so many children," implies an indefinitely large number. " There were so many children, and so many buns," implies without saying so that there was a bun for each child. "So much sack to so little bread," simply compares the quantities; but "Sack so much, bread so much," indicates what they cost. 1 Get along,' is the familiar phrase with which Mary Jane repels her too insistent admirer. { Get along,' is the way his employer advises him to make a little progress with his work. 1 What will happen then ?' means 'at that time ' if 'then' bears the accent, but if not it is merely the 'then' of argument ( = donc). 'Now' ( = a present, maintenant) has the accent if it refers to time; but 'Now' of argu- ment ( = or) has no accent. And before leaving this subject it may be remarked that in English books a comma is generally printed after the word l that* when it begins a clause of a sentence. If you wish what you read to sound like spoken English put the comma before the word "that" instead of after it, and let the word_ (that) be without accent. Occasionally the lack of an accent may lead to an ambiguity ; as when the man who had lost an umbrella went to the shop where they advertised, "Umbrellas recovered " in an hour" (re-cover, cf. recover) and was disappointed. Or again, ' The seething pot ' means the pot which is boiling, but ' The seething pot ' means a pot intended for boiling purposes. Again : " A man standing by opened one of a row of long covered vats," is ambiguous. "Long covered vats" implies that they had not been opened lately ; " long Accents* 99 i covered vats " states that they were long and that they were covered. But the following passage from " The Red City," by S. Weir Mitchell, p. 209, is the most delightfully ambiguous of any I have met : "As he came within a mile of the city he saw tents as for an army camp fires people cooking men women and children lying about by the roadside and in the orchards or the woods." It is only fair to the author and the publisher to say that they had correctly arranged the commas, which I leave you to insert. Another topic must be referred to, though it extends far beyond the scope of this book namely, the tendency to change that is evident in the pronunciation of the masses all over the country. Dr. Sweet has advocated yielding to this tendency to the extent of adopting the vowel-pronunciation now in vogue around London, as being the common tongue of so many millions. I am not of those who take this view. I remember London when the Cockney accent had quite different characteristics, and before your day is ended it will probably have changed again. I hold that we should make per- manent the pronunciation of our great orators, and that our influence should be as ballast to oppose the merely temporary influence of the uneducated. Compare the Londoner of Charles Dickens with the Londoner of to-day. " Spell it with a ' we,' my lord spell it with a ' we ' " says Mr. Weller to the Judge meaning that his son's name should be spelt Veller. He is as much out in his pronunciation of v and w as any Scandinavian. He pronounces Samuel ' Samivel.' You never hear that now it died out with the last of the Spitalfields weavers. ioo The Pronunciation of English. It used to be ascribed, whether rightly or not I cannot say, to the influx of refugees at the time of the French Revolution, but it had become a marked characteristic of Cockney speech. The favourite test sentence for the Londoner was, " White wine and vinegar is very good victuals, I vow." W was pronounced like V, but TH was given correctly. Nowadays, * with ' instead of * vith ' is pronounced { wiv ' in spite of the Board Schools. The change came about with surprising rapidity. So far as the vowels were concerned it was fairly complete by 1880. Twenty years before, the V and W error was in full swing. Already there are signs of farther change. The news- boys call out 'Sta'-r' instead of 'Sta 1 ^' and in many ways it is evident that the Vox Populi has no fixed standard of pronunciation. Curiously enough, I have to warn you against rich as well as poor. The poor boy of Dickens talks of ' puddin,' and marks his ignorance by leaving out the ' g ' from ' ng ' ; the 1 Brushwood boy ' of Rudyard Kipling reveals his aristocratic origin by saying things are ' rippin' ' and substituting * n * for ' ng ' everywhere. These are the freaks .of fashion, and you would be foolish to copy them. For the public schoolboy, when he leaves school, brings his school slang and tricks of talk with him to the Universities and the Services. And some of it sticks. So we get fads of pronunciation among the wealthy just as we have faults of pronunciation among the poor. They are never the same at the same time, but they take turns. The latest instance bids fair to be amusing. For years it has been regarded as the first step on the road to gentility to mind your aitches a small thing in itself but Accents; ' 101 still a sign that you might in some distant future become presentable in decent society. Playwrights and comic writers have joked about it. Now it has appeared at the top of the tree. In J. C. Snaith's recent novel Mrs. Fitz> the heir to a peerage talks about "unting' and ' 'ounds ' and says 'take 'em 'ome.' Wherefore I presume that in some exalted circles in which, I confess, I have not moved it is becoming the fashion to drop your aitches. This sort of thing is of no use to the foreigner. You do not want to learn a custom that will be practised only by a very limited set, and will be hopelessly out of fashion before your next visit to England. 'IO2 EXAMPLES FOR PRACTICE. SOME sort of apology is required for these sentences. As the Indian said of the English dictionary, it is difficult to trace the line of argument running through them. Some are quotations from Dickens, Besant, Stevenson, Tennyson, Shakespeare, and other authors read in class. Others contain fragments from several quotations welded together into some sort of coherence. Others are frankly made-up sentences invented to illustrate a difficulty which was troubling some student. And the name of the country at the head of each section means that the students for whose benefit those particular sentences were devised, came from that part of the world. But while readers will probably find some of their own besetting sins set forth in the section allotted to their own country, they must not assume themselves to be free from the (phonetic) weaknesses of humanity in other lands. The majority of the difficulties of pronunciation are common to several countries, especially with the vowels, though the mistakes differ in each. The value of these exercises is by no means limited to the inhabitants of the country for whom they were first designed. At the same time it is an interesting fact that along broad and general lines what is difficult for one nation in English pronunciation may be quite easy for another. Here and there each may find a sentence which appears quite superfluous, but taking them as a whole they afford excellent practice for any one. Examples for Practice* 103 NORWAY. 1. She is a little liable to it. (" Our Mutual Friend."} 2. Think, however, of the vast show of wealth near Hyde- Park Gates, and above all in Park Lane. 3. Peace hovered above us with wide white wings. 4. I know now how slow you go. 5. I wonder where you are wandering? 6. Shoulders so sloping could not be shrugged. 7. Paul laughed with delight. DENMARK. 1. It will suit me to go shooting to-morrow if my shooting suit arrives. You may be assured I shall make a point of pursuing my enquiries about it. 2. It was supposed he was opposed to Tariff Reform. 3. The love of money is a root of all evil. 4. I shall want a wand if I am to be the fairy queen. 5. A puppy picking poppies may do a lot of mischief in a little time. 6. The wind whistling along the wynd. SWEDEN. 1. A few weeks Swedish drill would soon give you greater breadth of chest. 2. Let a coach be called. I wish to see the principal objects of interest in London. 3. Some people dislike a cat, although it is so much more gentle than a dog. 4. I passed the church just as the children were coming out of school. 5. When the duke came of age he invited all the young people to a ball. 4 The Pronunciation of English* 6. One of Wilkie Collins's heroes is a bad, bold, bald, gloomy baronet. 7. Some of the company lingered longer singing songs. 8. Large moths fluttered in from the garden, singeing their wings at the candle. 9. In the place of meeting were a few people, mostly women. 10. Young gentleman, are you from London ? GERMANY. Some of the pronunciation errors observed occur all over the country ; others are characteristic of particular districts. The number of examples available was so large that only a few could be taken. The one hundred and twelve towns represented have been grouped into districts, and the sentences assigned to each which actually were heard in class will, I believe, illustrate every error that was noted. BADEN. 1. The bright bridesmaids in white dresses with rich jewels took Grace's fancy not a little. 2. It is not of much use expecting little people to remember things. 3. I don't deny that I was disappointed with the quality of the last bottle of wine. BAVARIA AND WURTEMBOURG. 1. The young man walked straight away with quick steps. 2. Although the weather is cold you can't expect me to walk very far in this thick thing. 3. His lordship plucked up courage. Examples for Practice* 105 4. Which is the very worst verse you ever read or wrote? 5. The pink dye of the lining of my bag comes off. BERLIN. 1. He sat down and spoke in measured tones of the light in the western sky. 2. Jack ought to catch the black cat and put it in a cage. 3. She wore a red ribbon round her white throat. 4. The valley was green with great growths of grass. 5. She undertook to buy the clothes in three months in London. 6. What is the colour of your collar? 7. The porter was on the border of a refusal. 8. Mr. Jones smiled when he heard who expected to be asked. BRUNSWICK AND BRANDENBURG. 1. The younger children will play quite quietly if they do not quarrel. 2. The house is situated on the banks of a small lake. 3. Send the little boys to the nursery. I will not permit them to make a bear-garden of my study. 4. It is still quite light of an evening after dinner. 5. How often do we find our first impressions wrong ! COAST. E. FRIESLAND, OLDENBURG, HANNOVER. 1. Mrs. Jones's pet dogs are both small spaniels. 2. She had her hair plaited and rolled round her head. 3. Do you think there are people who come to England in pursuit of novelties ? HESSE, ETC. 1. He stood alone upon the lawn. 2. I could only get tickets for two gentlemen. io6 The Pronunciation of English. 3. Mounted on a fresh polo pony he rode slowly round the field. 4. He seemed perfectly happy although he had not the price of a pint about him. 5. Poverty, albeit continual, could not depress him. 6. When the judges come to Oxford they go in state to the University Church. E. PRUSSIA. 1. In great cities women often work under very un- healthy conditions. 2. Up the airy mountain, Down the rushy glen, We dare not go a hunting, For fear of little men. 3. Harry wondered whether it was worse to be described as sprightly than as handsome. 4. First turn on the lower tap and then turn on the top tap too. 5. Ail his race reckons time by conferences. 6. You should undertake to do some useful work in London. 7. He has probably requested Master Arthur to ride over. 8. The cat sat on the mat. W. PRUSSIA. 1. Go to the butcher's shop for a mutton chop, and to the grocer's for cheese, chutney, and champagne. 2. Paul lost his punt pole in a pool. 3. Harry warmed to the work, and waited his oppor- tunity. 4. For men may come and men may go, But I go on for ever. 5. I had the impression that my brother-in-law regarded teetotalism with something like disapproval. Examples for Practice* 107 6. A pun is a play upon words. Samuel Johnson said 4 He that would make a pun would pick a pocket/ RHINE. 1. What have you done with your new cloak? 2. Have you left it at home ? 3. A merry maiden married in a murrey-coloured robe. 4. Your argument is wholly Hollow and unsound. 5. Every German woman should know how to make her home comfortable. SAXONY. 1. He was surprised, and she was no less surprised. 2. The uses of an unaffected youth's enthusiasm. 3. Green breadths of field and meadow. 4. One could not recall a word he had said. 5. In all these songs we sing this thing. 6. Sitting by the open window I watched the little birds hopping along the grass. 7. Blow, blow, thou winter wind, Thou art not so unkind, As man's ingratitude. SCHLESWIG. 1. I am too well aware of my deficiencies. 2. Mrs. Smythe's address is unknown to me. 3. He is a most distant relation. 4. He said he was sad because he had a bad head. 5. I have noticed that the English are fond of mustard with roast beef. 6. I give him a new suit of clothes every six months. SILESIA. 1. Sometimes a rash promise proves rather troublesome. 2. He put his loose silver in the stoutest bag. io8 The Pronunciation of English, 3. You must not think your mother a bother. 4, The air was so thick I could see nothing of the ships beyond the pier. WESTPHALIA. 1. An old man with a quite young wife. 2. We women want a man to work for us always. 3. Did you notice the police at the Opera? 4. There was a great flutter of wings, and a wild duck rose from the rushes and flew away. 5. A really right-minded dressmaker provides for a pocket in every dress. AUSTRIA. 1. Cleaning a floor the wrong way is only a waste of time. 2. Mary brought the cattle home, driving them slowly before her. 3. The doctor is thinking out the problem. 4. He gets more cross as he gets older. 5. A noble action is its own reward. 6. I want to find the owner of a pony. 7. Take this cup of sparkling wine. 8. It is quite worth six workmen's while. 9. To spend a week at the seaside is a very pleasant way of taking a short holiday. 10. A great drove of oxen going over the bridge frightened the women who were waiting to cross. 11. Considering the narrow path and the wild looks and gigantic horns of the beasts, this could not be accounted at all wonderful. 12. James Barker is going to row stroke in the boat race. 13. You might invite them to see it from the top of your College barge. Examples for Practice* 109 14. The afternoon is sure to be cold ; no doubt you will want your cloak. SWITZERLAND. 1. We are writing in the red room. 2. Her hair is the glory of a woman. 3. What a joke if he chokes ! 4. He appears to be a very polished gentleman. 5. Your eldest son has grown to be quite a big boy. 6. I suppose you have made enquiry as to the best ships from England to German ports. 7. He has only been taught the language three months. 8. Many of the big brewers in England are very rich. FRANCE. 1. The illumination of the streets at the Coronation was well worth seeing. Thousands of people walked around, looking at it. 2. I am no judge of athletic sports. 3. The dab-chick is a pretty little bird, which you may see sometimes swimming about the river CherwelL 4. Success in examinations should be the reward of those who work well. 5. It would be pleasant to have two or three bicycle- rides together. 6. I hope I shall never see him again, even in my dreams. I hate him ! 7. What shall we have for breakfast ? ham and eggs, or omelette and hot toast ? 8. You are sure to encounter difficulties whatever course you follow. no The Pronunciation of English. RUSSIA. 1. It was a bleak coast with dangerous shoals on which by wind and wave the helpless ship was being driven. 2. The fatal moment had arrived. 3. What will you wear on your birthday ? 4. Dick arose and picked a rose. 5. Did you notice the thick cloud of smoke that hangs over London ? 6. I like to do my work at home. 7. My coachman drove me round to visit you. 8. In my whole life I have never seen a more dignified servant. 9. Unknown and unowned he passed from human ken. POLISH. 1. Wisdom is more precious than rubies. 2. Some folk like to indulge in tall talk. 3. Nobody broke the silence, which lasted so long that I nearly went to sleep. OXFORD: ALDEN AND co. LTD., BOCARDO PRESS. AN INITIAL PINE OF 25 CENTS LD 2l-100i-12/43 (8796s) LJ V I D I U 261457 -