that it has more vowel quality than it generally gets credit for. It certainly has a great proportion of articulations, and long— because final-clusters of these elements; but they give it a strength and dignity in utterance, for which euphonious vowelsmoothness would but ill compensate. The apparent scarcity of vowels, however, arises in great part from the rude way in which these soft elements are slurred, and curtailed of their “fair proportion" by our speakers. Let them be fully given, with all their tapering qualities, and softly blending in their combinations, without careless elisions and clippings, and the English Tongue will be found to possess as much of vowel-euphony as is consistent with the masculine character of its utterance.

We have collected a few instances of our Vowel-Combinations, -accented and unaccented,-which we commend to the student's tasteful practice. The perfect enunciation of these combinations, without either of the sounds being impaired in quality, is one of the neatest acts of speech, and a sure criterion of the cultivation of a reader.

1-1. Caries, congeries, minutiæ, periæci, pre-elect, sanies, series. : 1.2. Being, seeing, zeine, deity, theism, deism, cuneiform, deicide, corporeity, nereid, howbeit, seity, spontaneity, velleity, reiterate, atheist.

1-3. Create, creator, reagent, enunciation, verbiage, ideate,
permeate, affiliation, lineage, depreciate, initiate, excoriate,
foliage, malleate, muriate, obviate, recreate, satiate.

1-4. Re-echo, arietta, Vienna, acquiesce, oriental, pre-eminent,
siesta, ambient, requiem, inscience, orient, lenient.
1-5. Ideal, pæan, Sabean, pharisean, react, zodiac, myriad,
pancreas, lineal, dealbate, meander, genealogy, adamantean,
alias, encomiast, bronchial, burial, cardialgy, caveat, anteact.
1-6. Agreeable, screable, cochleary, theatre, aviary, zea, diarrhœa,
dulia, mania, dyspnœa, malleable, nausea, scoria, trachea.
1-7. Dearticulate, pianist, linear.

1.8. Near, bier, deer, appear, cheerful, afeard, veneer, barrier,
moneyer, courier, glacier, rapier.

1-9. Theurgy, lyceum, mausoleum, museum, idiot, idiom, curious, permeous, cupreous, axiom, amphibious, calcareous, carneous, furious, geranium, igneous.

1-10. Deaurate, geology, colipile, areotic, areometer, ebriosity, curiosity, georgic, geotic, heliolatry, meteoric, periodical, teleology, deobstruct, junior, senior, meteor.

Vowels 1-12. Leo, peony, zeolite, pleonasm, graveolent, deodand, geode, scagliola, embryo, neoteric, helioscope, aposiopesis, ratio, seraglio, urceolate.

The third element, it will be remembered, is a diphthongal

1

sound. Its finishing quality of e, or before very open vowels of i, must in all cases be heard,-often with extreme delicacy of shading; but the total omission of it is un-English.

Vowels 3-1. Aerial, phaeton.

3-2. Playing, grayish, laity, mosaic,tr ochaic, hebraic, clayey, judaical, hebraist, archaism, judaism.

3-4. Obeyest, weigheth, prayest.

3-5. Naiad, abeyance, conveyance.
3-6. Affraiable, weighable.

3-8. Weigher, player, gayer, delayer.

3-10. Aorta, archaiology, chaos, chaotic.
3-11. Aorist.

3-12. Aonian, kaolin.

3-7-1. Grey-eyed, hebraize, judaize.

The 4th English vowel occurs initial in but one combination, —4-8, as in air, heir, ere, prayer, care. &c.

Note.-In Scotland, a diphthong compounded of 4-1 or 4-2, is commonly heard instead of 7-1, in my, buy, sigh, &c.

The 5th vowel (an) with the 12th or 13th, is often heard among English speakers, instead of the more open vowel which correctly forms the first sound of the diphthong ou. Thus, bough, thou, how, &c. are pronounced with 5-13, bă-00, thǎ-00, &c. There is a mincing effect of affectation in this peculiarity.

Vowels 7-1. Buy, try, sigh, I, fye, lie.

7-1-1. Hyena, hyemal, empyema, trieterical, syenite, dietetic, diesis quietus, striæ.

7-1-2. Buying, sighing, dying, trying, thyine, skyey, shyish.

7-1-4. Buyest, dieth, science, quiescent, diœresis, scientific, lien, client (variety, quiet, notoriety, piety, propriety, ubiety.)

Note. The words within brackets are often-if not generally-pronounced 7-1-2. In Scotland, they are contracted into 7-1, and pronounced pah-eety, varah-eety, &c.

Vowels 7-1-5. Diameter, iambus, dialogist, eyas, sciatica, biangulous, bias, sialogogue, alliance, phial, elegiac, sciagraphy, trial.

7-1-6. Via, viaduct, diapason, pianet, friable, striature, siriasis.
7-1-8. Fire, crier, dyer, trierarch, dire, briery, fiery.

7-1-9. Orion, lion, pious, triumph, scion, iron, triumphal, diurnal.
7-1-10. Ionic, triobolar, myology, scioptic, dioptrics, diorthosis, prior.
7-1-12. Iodine, violent, trio, sciolist, pioneer, myopy, bryony, invio-
lable, diocese, violin, meionite, meiosis.

7-13-1. Advowee.

7-13-2. Ploughing, allowing, vowing.

7-13-4. Allowest, voweth, vowel, bowel, rowel, towel.
7-13-5. Allowance, avowal.

7-13-8. Our, power, shower, dowery, hour-glass, towering.
7-1-7-1. Dry-eyed.

10-1. Boy, oil, noise, adroit, conoidical, avoid, soil, alloyed, join,
point.

10-2. Sawing, pawing, drawing, flawy, gnawing, rawish, thawing,

moiety.

10-4. Drawest, gnaweth, sawest.

10-5. Withdrawal.

10-8. Drawer, rawer, war.

10-1-2. Boyish, enjoying, annoying, toying, coyish, cloying.
10-1-3. Voyage.

10-1-4. Destroyest, joyeth, employest, annoyeth.

10-1-5. Buoyance, annoyance, royal, royalty.
10-1-8. Employer, alloyer, coyer.

The 12th vowel, like the 3rd, is diphthongal. With less or more distinctness its compound quality should be heard in every combination in careful reading. Colloquially, however, -and especially before very open vowels,—the more open and simple o is

12

11

used instead of o-oo. Care must be taken that the lips do not too much modify the 12th vowel, or there will be a tendency to produce the articulation w, instead of the vowel oo, before another vowel.

Vowels 12-1. Coeval, proemial, orthoepist.

12-2. Stoic, owing, doughy, coincidence, poet, poetry, heroine.
12-3. Boation, acroamatical.

12-4. Owest, knoweth, proem, poetical, aloetics, coheir, coefficacy,

soever.

12-5. Coagulate, coadjutor, coagment, coadunition, salsoacid,

retroaction.

Vowels

...

...

...

...

...

...

12-6. Oasis, zedoary, proa, boa, coacervate.

12-7. Coarct, coarctation.

12-8. Coerce, lower, mower, borrower.

12-10. Co-operate, zoology, zoography, co-ordinate, co-optation. 12-12. Zoolite, zoophyte.

12-7-1. Polychroite.

13-2. Bruit, wooing, truism, druid, fluid, dewy, ruin, fortuitous, impuissance, puissant, assiduity, pituitary, comminuible, jesuit, jesuitical.

13-3. Sinuate.

13-4. Cruel, fluent, duel, incruental, inuendo, circumfluence, affluent,

minuet.

13-5. Pursuant, renewal, truant, accentual, casual, manual, mutual. 13-6. Suable, pursuable, estuary, mantua, mulctuary.

13-8. Brewer, tour, your, cure, poor-house, moorish, reviewer, durable, mure, lure, surely.

13-9. Sinuous, innocuous, assiduous, vacuum, fatuous. 13-10. Fluor, sinuosity, impetuosity.

13-12. Actuose.

PART SECOND.

DICTIONARY OF ENGLISH SOUNDS.

SECTION FIRST-VOWELS.

In the former part of this work, we have developed the theory of Vowel and Articulate Formations. We shall now proceed to make some Practical Observations on each of the elements of English Speech, and to furnish a series of Exercises, in the practice of which the student will find the certain means of his improvement, whether in Distinctness of Articulation, the Anglicising of Provincial Characteristics, or the Removing of Individual Faults of Utterance.

The arrangement of the Vowel Exercises is as follows :—

First, Words are given, containing the sound under consideration in unaccented syllables: the unaccented vowels are printed in italics.

Note. The exact sounds of the vowels should be heard as distinctly in their shortest forms, as in the longest. The perfect preservation of the characteristic sounds of the vowels in unaccented syllables furnishes the most unmistakeable evidence of a cultivated pronunciation.

Secondly, Words in which the sound is accented; I. Before a Vowel; II. Before Breath Articulations, or Liquids followed by Breath Articulations; III. Before Voice Articulations followed by a Vowel; IV. Before Double or Final Voice Articulations; V. Final.

Thirdly, Words which are distinguished by the sound from other words, with which, in careless utterance, they are liable to be confounded.

Fourthly, Words of identical sound, but various orthography.