The Grammar of English Grammars · Chapter 654Appendix I. To Part First, or Orthography. Of the Sounds of the Letters
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In the first chapter of Part I, the powers of the letters, or the elementary sounds of the English language, were duly enumerated and explained; for these, as well as the letters themselves, are few, and may be fully stated in few words: but, since we often express the same sound in many different ways, and also, in some instances, give to the same letter several different sounds,—or, it may be, no sound at all,—any adequate account of the powers of the letters considered severally according to usage,—that is, of the sound or sounds of each letter, with its mute positions, as these occur in practice,—must, it was thought, descend to a minuteness of detail not desirable in the first chapter of Orthography. For this reason, the following particulars have been reserved to be given here as an Appendix, pertaining to the First Part of this English Grammar.
OBS. 1.—A proper discrimination of the different vowel sounds by the epithets most commonly used for this purpose,—such as long and short, broad and slender, open and close, or open and shut,—is made difficult, if not impossible, by reason of the different, and sometimes directly contradictory senses in which certain orthoepists [sic—KTH] have employed such terms. Wells says, "Vowel sounds are called open or close, according to the relative size of the opening through which the voice passes in forming them. Thus, a in father, and o in nor, are called open sounds, because they are formed by a wide opening of the organs of speech; while e in me, and u in rule, are called close sounds, because the organs are nearly closed in uttering them."—School Grammar, 1850, p. 32. Good use should fix the import of words. How does the passage here cited comport with this hint of Pope?
"These equal syllables alone require, Though oft the ear the open vowels tire." —Essay on Criticism, l. 344.
OBS. 2.—Walker, too, in his Principles, 64 and 65, on page 19th of his Critical Pronouncing Dictionary, mentions a similar distinction of vowels, "which arises from the different apertures of the mouth in forming them;" and says, "We accordingly find vowels denominated by the French, ouvert and fermé; by the Italians, aperto and chiuso; and by the English [,] open and shut. But whatever propriety there may be in the use of these terms in other languages, it is certain they must be used with caution in English for fear of confounding them with long and short. Dr. Johnson and other grammarians call the a in father the open a: which may, indeed, distinguish it from the slender a in paper; but not from the broad a in water, which is still more open. Each of these letters [the seven vowels] has a short sound, which may be called a shut sound; but the long sounds cannot be so properly denominated open as more or less broad; that is, the a in paper, the slender sound; the a in father, the broadish or middle sound; and the a in water, the broad sound. The same may be observed of the o. This letter has three long sounds, heard in move, note, nor; which graduate from slender to broadish, and broad [,] like [those three sounds of] the a. The i also in mine may be called the broad i, and that in machine, the slender i; though each of them is equally long; and though these vowels that are long [,] may be said to be more or less open according to the different apertures of the mouth in forming them, yet the short vowels cannot be said to be more or less shut; for as short always implies shut (except in verse,) though long does not always imply open, we must be careful not to confound long and open, and close and shut, when we speak of the quantity and quality of the vowels. The truth of it is," continues he, "all vowels either terminate a syllable, or are united with a consonant. In the first case, if the accent be on the syllable, the vowel is long, though it may not be open: in the second case, where a syllable is terminated by a consonant, except that consonant be r, whether the accent be on the syllable or not, the vowel has its short sound, which, compared with its long one, may be called shut: but [,] as no vowel can be said to be shut that is not joined to a consonant, all vowels that end syllables may be said to be open, whether the accent be on them or not."—Crit. Pron. Dict., New York, 1827, p. 19.
OBS. 3.—These suggestions of Walker's, though each in itself may seem clear and plausible, are undoubtedly, in several respects, confused and self-contradictory. Open and shut are here inconsistently referred first to one principle of distinction, and then to another;—first, (as are "open and close" by Wells,) to "the relative size of the opening," or to "the different apertures of the mouth;" and then, in the conclusion, to the relative position of the vowels with respect to other letters. These principles improperly give to each of the contrasted epithets two very different senses: as, with respect to aperture, wide and narrow; with respect to position, closed and unclosed. Now, that open may mean unclosed, or close be put for closed, is not to be questioned; but that open is a good word for wide, or that shut (not to say close) can well mean narrow, is an assumption hardly scholarlike. According to Walker, "we must be careful not to confound" open with long, or shut with short, or close with shut; and yet, if he himself does not, in the very paragraph above quoted, confound them all,—does not identify in sense, or fail to distinguish, the two words in each of these pairs,—I know not who can need his "caution." If there are vowel sounds which graduate through several degrees of openness or broadness, it would seem most natural to express these by regularly comparing the epithet preferred; as, open, opener, openest; or broad, broader, broadest. And again, if "all vowels that end syllables may be said to be open," then it is not true, that "the long sounds" of a in paper, father, water, cannot be so "denominated;" or that to "call the a in father the open a, may, indeed, distinguish it from the slender a in paper." Nor, on this principle, can it be said that "the broad a in water is still more open;" for this a no more "ends a syllable" than the others. If any vowel sound is to be called the open sound because the letter ends a syllable, or is not shut by a consonant, it is, undoubtedly, the primal and most usual sound, as found in the letter when accented, and not some other of rare occurrence.
OBS. 4.—Dr. Perley says, "It is greatly to be regretted that the different sounds of a vowel should be called by the names long, short, slender, and broad, which convey no idea of the nature of the sound, for mat and not are as long in poetry as mate and note. The first sound of a vowel[,] as [that of a in] fate[,] may be called open, because it is the sound which the vowel generally has when it ends a syllable; the second sound as [that of a in] fat, may be called close, because it is the sound which the vowel generally has when it is joined with a consonant following in the same syllable, as fat-ten; when there are more than two sounds of any vowel[,] they may be numbered onward; as 3 far, 4 fall."—Perley's Gram., p. 73.
OBS. 5.—Walker thought a long or short vowel sound essential to a long or short quantity in any syllable. By this, if he was wrong in it, (as, in the chapter on Versification, I have argued that he was,) he probably disturbed more the proper distinction of quantities, than that of vowel sounds. As regards long and short, therefore, Perley's regret seems to have cause; but, in making the same objection to "slender and broad," he reasons illogically. So far as his view is right, however, it coincides with the following earlier suggestion: "The terms long and short, which are often used to denote certain vowel sounds; being also used, with a different import, to distinguish the quantity of syllables, are frequently misunderstood; for which reason, we have substituted for them the terms open and close;—the former, to denote the sound usually given to a vowel when it forms or ends an accented syllable; as, ba, be, bi, bo, bu, by;—the latter, to denote the sound which the vowel commonly takes when closed by a consonant; as, ab, eb, ib, ob, ub"—Brown's Institutes, p. 285.
The vowel A has four sounds properly its own; they are named by various epithets: as,
1. The English, open, full, long, or slender a; as in aid, fame, favour, efficacious.
2. The French, close, curt, short, or stopped a; as in bat, banner, balance, carrying.
3. The Italian, broadish, grave, or middle a; as in far, father, aha, comma, scoria, sofa.
4. The Dutch, German, Old-Saxon, or broad a; as in wall, haul, walk, warm, water.
OBS. 1.—Concerning the number of sounds pertaining to the vowel a, or to certain other particular letters, and consequently in regard to the whole number of the sounds which constitute the oral elements of the English language, our educational literati,—the grammarians, orthoepists [sic—KTH], orthographers, elocutionists, phonographers, and lexicographers,—are found to have entertained and inculcated a great variety of opinions. In their different countings, the number of our phonical elements varies from twenty-six to more than forty. Wells says there are "about forty elementary sounds."—School Gram., §64. His first edition was more positive, and stated them at "forty-one." See the last and very erroneous passage which I have cited at the foot of page 162. In Worcester's Universal and Critical Dictionary, there appear to be noted several more than forty-one, but I know not whether this author, or Walker either, has anywhere told us how many of his marked sounds he considered to be severally different from all others. Sheridan and Jones admitted twenty-eight. Churchill acknowledges, as undisputed and indisputable, only twenty-six; though he enumerates, "Of simple vowel sounds, twelve, or perhaps thirteen" (New Grammar, p. 5,) and says, "The consonant sounds in the English language, are nineteen, or rather twenty."—P. 13.
OBS. 2.—Thus, while Pitman, Comstock, and others, are amusing themselves with the folly of inventing new "Phonetic Alphabets," or of overturning all orthography to furnish "a character for each of the 38 elementary sounds," more or fewer, one of the acutest observers among our grammarians can fix on no number more definite or more considerable than thirty-one, thirty-two, or thirty-three; and the finding of these he announces with a "perhaps," and the admission that other writers object to as many as five of the questionable number. Churchill's vowel sounds, he says, "may be found in the following words: 1. B_a_te, 2. B_a_t, 3. B_a_ll; 4. B_e_t, 5. B_e_; 6. B_i_t; 7. B_o_t, 8. B_o_ne, 9. B_oo_n; 10. B_u_t, 11. B_u_ll; 12. Lovel_y_; 13. _W_ool."—New Grammar, p. 5. To this he adds: "Many of the writers on orthoepy [sic—KTH], however, consider the first and fourth of the sounds above distinguished as actually the same, the former differing from the latter only by being lengthened in the pronunciation. They also reckon the seventh sound, to be the third shortened; the twelfth, the fifth shortened; and the eleventh, the ninth shortened. Some consider the fifth and sixth as differing only in length; and most esteem the eleventh and thirteenth as identical."—Ib.
OBS. 3.—Now, it is plain, that these six identifications, or so many of them as are admitted, must diminish by six, or by the less number allowed, the thirteen vowel sounds enumerated by this author. By the best authorities, W initial, as in "_W_ool." is reckoned a consonant; and, of course, its sound is supposed to differ in some degree from that of oo in "B_oo_n," or that of u in "B_u_ll,"—the ninth sound or the eleventh in the foregoing series. By Walker, Murray, and other popular writers, the sound of y in "Lovel_y_" is accounted to be essentially the same as that of e in "B_e_." The twelfth and the thirteenth, then, of this list, being removed, and three others added,—namely, the a heard in far, the i in fine, and the u in fuse,—we shall have the fourteen vowel sounds which are enumerated by L. Murray and others, and adopted by the author of the present work.
OBS. 4.—Wells says, "A has six sounds:—1. Long; as in late. 2. Grave; as in father. 3. Broad; as in fall. 4. Short; as in man. 5. The sound heard in care, hare. 6. Intermediate between a in man and a in father; as in grass, pass, branch."—School Grammar, 1850, p. 33. Besides these six, Worcester recognizes a seventh sound,—the "A obscure; as in liar, rival"—Univ. and Crit. Dict., p. ix. Such a multiplication of the oral elements of our first vowel.—or, indeed, any extension of them beyond four,—appears to me to be unadvisable; because it not only makes our alphabet the more defective, but is unnecessary, and not sustained by our best and most popular orthoepical [sic—KTH] authorities. The sound of a in liar, (and in rival too, if made "obscure") is a borrowed one, pertaining more properly to the letter u. In grass, pass, and branch, properly uttered, the a is essentially the same as in man. In care and hare, we have the first sound of a, made as slender as the r will admit.
OBS. 5.—Concerning his fifth sound of a, Wells cites authorities thus: "Walker, Webster, Sheridan, Fulton and Knight, Kenrick, Jones, and Nares, give a in care the long sound of a, as in late. Page and Day give it the short sound of a, as in mat. See Page's Normal Chart, and Day's Art of Elocution. Worcester and Perry make the sound of a in care a separate element; and this distinction is also recognized by Russell, Mandeville, and Wright. See Russell's Lessons in Enunciation, Mandeville's Elements of Reading and Oratory, and Wright's Orthography."—Wells's School Grammar, p. 34. Now the opinion that a in care has its long, primal sound, and is not properly "a separate element," is maintained also by Murray, Hiley, Bullions, Scott, and Cobb; and is, undoubtedly, much more prevalent than any other. It accords, too, with the scheme of Johnson. To count this a by itself, seems too much like a distinction without a difference.
OBS. 6.—On his sixth sound of a, Wells remarks as follows: "Many persons pronounce this a incorrectly, giving it either the grave or the short sound. Perry, Jones, Nares, Webster, and Day, give to a in grass the grave sound, as in father; while Walker, Jamieson, and Russell, give it the short sound, as in man. But good speakers generally pronounce a in grass, plant, etc., as a distinct element, intermediate between the grave and the short sound."—School Gram., p. 34. He also cites Worcester and Smart to the same effect; and thinks, with the latter, "There can be no harm in avoiding the censure of both parties by shunning the extreme that offends the taste of each."—Ib., p. 35. But I say, that a needless multiplication of questionable vowel powers difficult to be discriminated, is "harm," or a fault in teaching; and, where intelligent orthoepists [sic—KTH] dispute whether words have "the grave or the short sound" of a, how can others, who condemn both parties, acceptably split the difference, and form "a distinct element" in the interval? Words are often mispronounced, and the French or close a may be mistaken for the Italian or broadish a, and vice versa; but, between the two, there does not appear to be room for an other distinguishable from both. Dr. Johnson says, (inaccurately indeed,) "A has three sounds, the slender, [the] open, and [the] broad. A slender is found in most words, as face, mane. A open is the a of the Italian, or nearly resembles it; as father, rather, congratulate, fancy, glass. A broad resembles the a of the German; as all, wall, call. [fist] The short a approaches to the a open, as grass."—Johnson's Grammar, in his Quarto Dictionary, p. 1. Thus the same word, grass, that serves Johnson for an example of "the short a" is used by Wells and Worcester to exemplify the "a intermediate;" while of the Doctor's five instances of what he calls the "a open," three, if not four, are evidently such as nearly all readers nowadays would call close or short!
OBS. 7.—There are several grammarians who agree in ascribing to our first vowel five sounds, but who nevertheless oppose one an other in making up the five. Thus, according to Hart, "A has five sounds of its own, as in fate, fare, far, fall, fat,"—Hart's E. Gram., p. 26. According to W. Allen, "A has five sounds;—the long or slender, as in cane; the short or open, as in can; the middle, as in arm; the broad, as in all; and the broad contracted, as in want."—Allen's E. Gram., p. 6. P. Davis has the same sounds in a different order, thus: "a [as in] mane, mar, fall, mat, what."—Davis's E. Gram., p. xvi. Mennye says, "A has five sounds; as, 1 fame, 2 fat, 3 false, 4 farm, 5 beggar."—Mennye's E. Gram., p. 55. Here the fifth sound is the seventh of Worcester,—the "A obscure."