The following Table of English Monophthongs and Diphthongs, shows the order in which we shall treat of the Vowels, and arrange the Exercises on each. No. Vowel. as in educe, element, exuvia, sheepfold, beamless, bee. ... ... I. 1. II. 2, III. 3, IV. impose, verily, differ, dimness. agate, acre, ague, gay. embrace, empty, embers. admire, action, admiral. arouse, academic, sofa, master, baths. partake, partial, pardon, papa. idea, lightly, mindful, sky. however, doubtful, loudly, how. herbaceous, martyr, certain, thirdly, sir. supply, cutler, cudgel. curtail, curtain, curdle. obtain, donkey, dogma. austere, auction, auburn, awe. boisterous, boiled, boy. portray, porter, boarder, adore. mow. footman, should. utility, ague, bootlace, shooed. FIRST VOWEL. OBSERVATIONS.-This is the Alphabetic sound of E in English, and of I in the French and other continental tongues. It is the closest of the Lingual Vowels. In its formation, the tongue rises convexly within the arch of the palate, and presses laterally against the palate and back-teeth, leaving only a very narrow aperture for the voice, between the middle of the tongue and palate. A very common fault in the formation of this vowel consists in the depression of the point of the tongue to the lower teeth-a position which, besides being injurious to the quality of the vowel, is unfavourable to the action of the tongue for many of the Articulations. The tongue must be kept back, and its point directed horizontally, to guide the sound out of the mouth without striking the teeth. The teeth must, of course, be sufficiently apart: they should, for no vowel, have a less opening than a quarter or a third of an inch. Many persons fail to pronounce this vowel with purity, when it is under emphasis, especially when final: as in "to be or not to be," "me miserable," they shall be free," "to sleep, perchance to dream." The breath is heard rustling in the mouth, from too close organic approximation. To correct this, pronounce words ending with e, and dwell on the vowel for some time, observing that the tongue is kept perfectly still until the sound be finished in the glottis. 1 In Scotland this vowel is generally deficient in openness and quantity: the e in meet, mean, &c., being sounded almost as abruptly as that in mechanic. In many cases, the 3rd vowel, but very short, and without the English diphthongal termination, is substituted for the 1st; thus meal, steal, deal, &c., are pronounced måle, stăle, dăle, &c. This peculiarity seems to be almost confined to words spelled with ea. A similar exchange of vowels takes place in Ireland; but such words as sweet, chief, scheme, &c., where the sound is variously represented, partake of the peculiarity. The Irish sound is more open and prolonged than the Scotch; and its vocality is less pure, being mixed with the articulative Aspiration which is characteristic of the Irish dialect. EXERCISES. Note.-Vowel 1, is seldom exactly sounded in an unaccented syllable immediately after the accent, as in appetite, antitheses, penetrate, &c. In such cases it is very liable to take the more open and easier form of the 2nd Vowel. Before the accent, however, as in edition, beseech, precocious, return, &c., the 1st formation must always be carefully preserved. Unaccented.-aberuncate, acetate, adequate, atites, aggelation, aggregate, algebra, alias, allegory, ambergris, ambient, anemometer, anhelation, antelope, antemetic, antennæ, antipodes, apprehend, arian, assuetude, atheist, aviary, axiom; because, before, behold, below, beneath, beseech, bereft, between, beware, beyond; create, credulity; dealbate, deaurate, debar, December, decision, defunct, dehort, deintegrate, delay, demand, demy, deoxydate, deposit, derision, descend, detain, develop; ebriety, eclipse, edition, elastic, elicit, emaciate, emit, enervate, enough, eolic, eolian, epistle, equator, erect, espouse, evade, event, expiate, exuvia; fecundity, felicity; generic, geotic, geology; hereditary, heroic; lethargic, levant; meander, mechanic, memento, meretricious, metropolis; necessity, nefarious, negation, neology; orient, obsequies; peculiar, pedantic, penult, pepastic, preamble, precede, precipitate, precocious, predict, prefer, pre-emient, prehensile, preliminary, premium, prenunciation, preoccupy, prepare, prerogative, prescind, preserve, pretend, prevail; react, reality, rebellion, receive, recover, redundant, regard, rehearse, reiterate, rejoice, relapse, religion, remember, remonstrate, renew, renown, repair, reprehend, republic, request, research, resolve, resource, result, retail, return, revere, revisit, reward, rhetorical; secession, secrete, secure, sedate, select, senescence, setaceous, severity, stereotype; temerity, terreous, theatrical, theocracy, tremendous; vegetate, vehement, velocity, veranda; zetetic. Note.-R, after long vowels, has the sound of the 8th vowel, (as in sir). Its 1 combination with e will therefore give the diphthong 1-8. The omission of the 8th vowel from such words as ear, here, cheer, &c. is a Scotticism. There 1 is, besides, a harshness in the junction of e with the articulative effect of R, which is gracefully avoided by the interposition of the open element which is always heard in English. 1 Care must be taken to avoid the intervention of any similar sound between e and L or N: the habit of inserting another vowel in this situation prevails in Scotland; but these articulations must be directly joined to the simple and unchanged vowel. Accented.-I. Adhere, aerial, albeit, apotheosis, appear, aureola, eneid, idea, cheerful, unreal, really, sphere, weary, fierce, pierce, shire, zero, we're, pier, rear, bier. II. Reaf, chief, leaf, belief; eke, apeak, unique, seek, speaker, pique, weakness; steeple, deep, people, keeper, heap, weep; antœci, apiece, auxecis, east, easter, exegesis, obese, fleece, priesthood, police, pelisse, increase; accretion, appreciate, specious; acetous, excrete, feature, meetness, sweet, treaty, conceit, seat, veto; appeach, beech, preacher, leeches, teaching; ethiop, ether, heath, wreath, teeth. III. Abstemious, adhesion, leisure, seizure, ægis, alleviate, amphisbona, aphelion, arena, arundelian, eagle, easy, edict, either, emir, enfeeble, even, evil, expedient, illegal, feasible, ingredient, mediate, oedema, feeling, ingenious, pleasing, reason, sheathing, penal, tedious, meagre, peevish, abbreviate. L IV. Glebe; antecede, meed, agreed, keyed, plead; league, fatigue; liege, siege; eel, field, congeal, yield, reel, meal, anneal, beam, scheme, scream, supreme, esteem, theme, disme; e’en, fiend, keen, mien, visne, ween, scene, meanness, clean; breathe, sheathe; ease, seize, these, degrees, appease, breeze, frieze; eve, leave, achieve, aggrieve, eaves. V. Be, flee, key, lea, lessee, knee, quay, tea, free, sea, agree, glee, appellee, trustee, ennui, etui, three, ye, we, thee. Words of the same Pronunciation, but different Orthography. OBSERVATIONS.-This sound we are inclined to consider almost as a characteristic of the English language, from its frequent occurrence in English, and its comparatively little use in other modern languages. It has been generally reckoned the short form of the 1st vowel,—but erroneously. The shortest utterance of e will be a distinctly different sound from this, which, as its position in our table indicates, is a formation intermediate to those of e and a. The 1 1 1 3 tongue, from its position at e, is depressed for the 2nd vowel, about half way 3 to its position for a,—as careful experiment will manifest. There is no longer form of this vowel in English, than that of the word hinge; but the prolongation of the sound is of course quite practicable. The second vowel is not heard in English before R, final or followed by any articulation: the 8th vowel is substituted in these cases. When the R is followed by another vowel, as in mirror, miracle, &c. the i has generally the sound of the second vowel,- -as before other articulations. In Scotland, we hear, instead of this vowel, a peculiar and more open sound, nearly approaching to that of the 4th English Vowel, being a formation intermediate to the 3rd and 4th. This will be found noted in our General Scheme, (page 28) as the 4th of the Lingual series. Among Northern speakers, ambitious of an English enunciation, but who have been taught to believe that the vowels ee(1) and i(ll are identical in formation, we frequently hear the 1st instead of the 2nd vowel, as in vision, condition, suspicion, &c., pronounced veesion, condection, suspeccion, &c. This need not any longer be a mark of Northern English, for there is no difficulty in producing the true sound of the English element when once its formation is understood. The 2nd vowel is common enough in Scotch under another form. It is heard instead of the short sound of the French û, (The 3rd Labio-lingual vowel, G. V. S. page 28), which is vernacular in Scotland. Thus the word gude, (good) is in many districts, pronounced exactly like the first syllable in giddy : |