of 20 varieties of vowel sound, cognisable as elements of existing languages and dialects.

A phonographic writer should be able to delineate on his page the very peculiarities of a speaker's pronunciation; but this system does not enable him to express even those manifest differences that exist between the utterance of a correct English speaker and the vernacular English of a Scotchman. He must, for instance, write alike their different pronunciations of such words as fair, there, * more, door, &c. He has no means of noting a difference between the sounds in er and ur,which is unquestionably a distinctive elegance in polite English utterance, and so must write pervade and purveyed alike,[virtue vurtue, and sir sur: and he has no choice between a(m) and a(lms), for writing the intermediate vowel heard in ask, fast, &c.

The plan of writing long vowels by heavy marks, and short vowels by light ones, is good; but we must have a character independent of that of quantity for every variety of vowel formation. A quantitative distinction is only necessary for two vowels in our language.

But if there were no more serious objections to this Phonographic system than its errors in vowel-theory and representation, these would hardly afford sufficient reason for the construction of a new system, because the use of a merely general vowel mark to show where a vowel occurs rather than precisely what vowel it is, would suffice for ordinary short-hand notation to those who are acquainted with the language which they write. But the articulations also are arranged on false principles; and errors in their representation are much more serious than those in the scheme of vowel-marks.

The articulations are classed under the four heads of mutes, semivowels, liquids, and nasals. In the first class are included with the breath letters P, T, K, their voice correspondents B, D, G, and also the combinations Ch=tsh, and J=dzh. If these letters are mutes—our speech must be, nearly half of it, mere dumb show. The semi-vowel category includes with the vocal elements V, Th(is), Z, Zh, their breath correspondents F, Th(in), S, Sh. If the former set were entitled to the name "semi-vowel,"—which they are not-the latter could not certainly claim anything more than that of" demi-semi-vowels". -or perhaps "semi-demi-semi-vowels," terms that would be fully as expressive of the real qualities of the sounds as the one appropriated to them. "What's in a name?" may well be asked, if names with nothing in them serve the purposes of nomenclature. The class "LIQUIDS" contains only L and R; the letters M, N, and NG, which are also liquids, if that name expresses anything, being separately classed as simply "NASALS."

The "MUTES" and "SEMI-VOWELS are subdivided into sharps" and 'flats,"―terms equally expressive with those attached to the leading divisions; -but the student is not told to which of these classes the " liquids" and

*The difference between the sound of a, as in mate and mare, is recognised, but not provided for, in a note (p. 39) in the last quoted edition of the Manual of Phonography.

"nasals" belong. He should of course discover this from the character by which he is to represent these sounds. But this will mislead him; for the excellent principle of distinction between breath and voice letters, which is the best and newest point in this phonographic system, is not consistently applied to the elements of the last two classes. The "liquids" and "nasals" are all voice letter ("flats"); yet only one of them,—namely, NG, is written in the voice character. N and ng are represented by the same mark,—the former thin (the sharp notation), the latter thick (the flat notation), so that the scheme of articulate symbols misinforms the eye that as B is to P, V to F, Z to S, &c., so is ng to N! This is one of the errors resulting from an arbitrary arrangement of marks, and the neglect of a natural principle of association.

One of the most serious errors in Pitman's Phonography, both as regards its fundamental principiation of speech, and its stenographic simplicity, remains to be noticed.

The articulative function of the letters Y and W is not recognised. These elements are considered to be always vowels-vowels only. The result is, that this lack of characters to represent two articulations has to be supplied, and is supplied, by no less than 40 symbols, to denote their combinations with different vowels. The cumbersome result of such a theory, one would have expected to operate to its rejection, even were it more correct; but it is clearly erroneous. Let its author, and all who think with him in this matter, test it in the words ye and woo, which, according to this theory, are nothing else than the repeated vowel ee ee and oo oo. Experiment will prove, that the most rapid utterance of two ce's, without any intermediate action of the tongue, will never produce the word ye; and that without a similar action of the lips between the two oo's, the word woo cannot possibly be sounded. If, then, ye and woo cannot be pronounced with the mouth steadily maintained in the vowel positions ee and oo, the initial elements of the words are not vowels but articulations.

The absence of an articulative Y leads to the writing of vulgarisms, and the corruption of utterance, in such words as future, nature, education, &c., which are written with tsh and dzh, instead of ty and dy; thus, "fuchr," "ějūkāshn," &c. Colloquial carelessness does certainly convert the nice articulations ty and dy into the more slovenly tsh and dzh; but the former are undoubtedly the elements heard in the correct utterance of this class of words; and surely the best pronunciation should always—unless for imitative purposes -be reflected in writing.

As there is no articulation w in this system, there is of course no wh; and this breath articulation is considered to be identical in sound with the word who hw-hoo. Thus, the sentence, "I saw the man WHET the knife" is phonographically (?) perverted into the rather startling assertion, "I saw the man WHO ATE the knife." Let the most glib upholder of this theory—for it is not confined to the system under review-pronounce the latter sentence as rapidly as he can, and see if he will ever make it express the former. Yet it should do so by the mere accident of abruptness, if the theory were correct.

We should not have adverted to the errors in this generally excellent system, or noticed it in any terms except of commendation, but for the influence which we conceive it may exert, not only on writing, but on speech; the good, if correct; the injury— so far as speech is concerned,—if incorrect in its articulative bases. We should be glad to see a system of writing sounds popularly studied, and brought into general use, were it only for the benefit that must result to popular articulation. We look upon Phonography as a most valuable auxiliary in teaching the Art of Speech; and our object in treating of it in this work is, that we may, by its aid, advance popular knowledge on the subject of speech. We should anticipate great good,-not to articulation alone, but to the general interests of language and education,— if every boy in our schools were a phonographer. He would then be capable of correctly analyzing speech; a process which, in the present state of knowledge that prevails on this subject, we have often seen baffle the efforts of older and wiser linguists, even in the most simple of our verbal combinations.

The following are the Principles on which we have constructed our Phonographic Scheme. The attentive perusal of them will enable any person, almost at once, to use our

ALPHABET OF ARTICULATIONS.

ORGANS EMPLOYED.

I. All articulations of the lips are written in a slanting direction from right to left.

II. All articulations of the back or root of the tongue are written slantingly from left to right.

III. All articulations of the point of the tongue acting upwards, are written perpendicularly.

IV. The sibilant and lisping sounds, in forming which the tongue lies nearly horizontal, are written horizontally.

MODES OF ACTION.

V. All Obstructive articulations,-i.e. those formed by perfect contact of the organs-(the First Mode of Action)—are represented by straight lines.

VI. Nasal quality is denoted by a ring; and, as the Nasals are orally obstructive by the same articulative mechanisms as the preceding elements, the nostril-ring is written with a short straight mark, which, by its line of direction, shows the obstructive formation, of which the ring denotes the nasal correspondent.

E e

VII. All Continuous articulations are represented by curve lines; those formed by organic approximation (the Second Mode of Action) being curved concavely to the line of direction; and those formed by partial contact (the Third Motion of Action) convexly.* VIII. The Aspiration H is represented by a straight horizontal line.

BREATH AND VOICE DISTINCTION.

IX. All Breath Articulations are written by thin, light markings; and Voice Articulations by relatively thick, dark lines.

By these principles, all the articulative correspondencies are distinctly manifested to the eye. The following is a complete Table of the English Articulations thus represented.

(1.) These spaces indicate the position and formation of articulations which do not occur in English; namely, the German or Scotch ch, with its voice correspondent; and the breath correlatives of R and L,—the Rh and Ll of the Welsh language.

(2.) There being no articulation of the 3rd mode by the back of the tongue, this curve is (arbitrarily) appropriated to Y, rather than a reduced form of the approximation curve; that the scheme may be unambiguously adapted for writing any language containing the omitted articulations.

(3.) Sh and S being both articulations of the 2nd mode, we use the same curve for them, but reduced to half-size for the former, which is very convenient, on account of its frequent occurrence in combinations.

The Vibratory mode of action, (see page 50), may be represented by a zigzag line.

Articulate Combinations.

A novel and important feature in our phonographic notation, consists in distinguishing by the mode of writing, articulate combinations from the same letters when separated by vowels,—as pl in place, from plin palace; tsh in chew, from t shin tissue; str in string, from str in stirring; rt in liberty, from r t in liberate; ld in sold, from 1 d in solid, &c. This principle gives certain and easy legibility to the writing, and renders the use of vowel marks, except for initial and final vowels, almost unnecessary. When no vowel intervenes between two articulations, this is shown by writing them only half-size; or, if the combination is initial or final, by contracting in the former case, the first element, and in the latter, the last, to a mere indication of its nature and direction. Thus the writing unmistakably distinguishes, without the aid of vowels, the words

The Sixteen English Vowels and Diphthongs might be represented by an arrangement of five simple marks,-using each for three sounds by placing it at the top, middle, or bottom of the articulation-mark; but, on account of the frequent dispensability of vowel-marks in short-hand-writing, and the difficulty of preserving three positions distinct on short characters, we prefer using