germs, each the starting point of large classes of words, the phonetic character of which is determined throughout by the type from which they issue. To ignore the individuality of each root in Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin, would be like ignoring the individuality of the types of the animal creation. There may be higher, more general, more abstract types, but if we want to reach them, we must first toil through the lower and more special types; we must retrace, in the descending scale of scientific analysis, every step by which, in an ascending scale, language has arrived at its present state.

The onomatopoeic system would be most detrimental to all scientific etymology, and no amount of learning and ingenuity displayed in its application could atone for the lawlessness which is sanctioned by it. If it is once admitted that all words must be traced back to definite roots, according to the strictest phonetic rules, it matters little whether these roots are called phonetic types, more or less preserved in all the innumerable impressions that are taken from them, or whether we call them onomatopoeic and interjectional. As long as we have definite forms between ourselves and chaos, we may build our science like an arch of a bridge, that rests on the firm piles fixed in the rushing waters. If, on the contrary, the roots of language are mere abstractions, and there is nothing to separate language from cries and interjections, then we may play with language as children play with the sands of the sea, but we must not complain if every fresh tide wipes out the little castles we had built on the beach.

WE

LECTURE III.

THE PHYSIOLOGICAL ALPHABET.

E proceed to-day to dissect the body of language. In doing this we treat language as a mere corpse, not caring whether it ever had any life or meaning, but simply trying to find out what it is made of, what are the impressions made upon our ear, and how they can be classified. In order to do this it is not sufficient to examine our alphabet, such as it is, though no doubt the alphabet may very properly be called the table of the elements of language. But what do we learn from our ABC? what even, if we are told that k is a guttural tenuis, s a dental sibilant, m a labial nasal, y a palatal liquid? These are names which are borrowed from Greek and Latin grammars. They expressed more or less happily the ideas which the scholars of Athens and Alexandria had formed of the nature of certain letters. But as translated into our grammatical phraseology they have lost almost entirely their original meaning. Our modern grammarians speak of tenuis and media, but they define tenuis not as a bare or thin letter, but on the contrary as the hardest and strongest articulation; nor are they always aware that the media or middle letters were originally so called because, as pronounced at Alexandria, they stood half-way between the bare and the rough letters, i.e. the aspirates,-being pronounced

with less aspiration than the aspirates, with more than the tenues. Plato's division of letters, as given in his Cratylus, is very much that which we still profess to follow. He speaks of voiced letters (Pwvýjevτα, vocales), our vowels; and of voiceless letters (apwva), our consonants, or mutes. But he seems to divide the latter into two classes: first, those which are voiceless, but produce a sound (φωνήεντα μὲν οὔ, οὐ μέντοι γε ἄφθογγα), afterwards called semi-vowels (uiwva); and secondly, the real mutes, both voiceless and soundless, i.e. all consonants, except the semi-vowels (aboyya).† In later times, the scheme adopted by Greek grammarians is as follows:

I. Phōnéenta, vocales, voiced vowels.

II. Symphona, consonantes.

II. 1. Hemiphōna, semi-vocales, half-voiced, 1, m, n, r, s: or, Hygrá, liquidæ, fluid,

1, m, n, r.

II. 2. A'phōna, mutæ, voiceless.

a. Psilá, tenues b. Mésa, mediæ c. Daséa, aspiratæ.

g, d, b.

ch, th, ph.

k, t, p. Another classification of letters, more perfect, be

Scholion to Dionysius Thrax, in Anecdota Bekk. p. 810. Φωνητικὰ ὄργανα τρία εἰσὶν, ἡ γλῶσσα, οἱ ὀδόντες, τὰ χείλη. Τοῖς μὲν οὖν ἄκροις χείλεσι πιλουμένοις ἐκφωνεῖται [τὸ π], ὥστε σχεδὸν μηδὲ ὀλίγον τι πνεῦμα παρεκβαίνειν· ἀνοιγομένων δὲ τῶν χειλέων πάνυ καὶ πνεύματος πολλοῦ ἐξιόντος, ἐκφωνεῖται τὸ φ· τὸ δὲ β, ἐκφωνούμενον ὁμοίως τοῖς ἄκροις τῶν χειλέων, τουτέστι περὶ τὸν αὐτὸν τόπον τοῖς προλεχθεῖσι τῶν φωνητικῶν ὀργάνων, οὔτε πάνυ ἀνώγει τὰ χείλη ὡς τὸ φ, οὔτε πάνυ πιλεῖ ὡς τὸ π, ἀλλὰ μέσην τινὰ διέξοδον τῷ πνεύματι Tepeioμévws didwowy, K.T.λ. See Rudolph von Raumer, Sprachwissenschaftliche Schriften, p. 102; Curtius, Griechische Etymologie, ii. p. 30.

† Raumer, l. c. p. 100.

cause deduced from a language (the Sanskrit) not yet reduced to writing, but carefully watched and preserved by oral tradition, is to be found in the socalled Prâtisâkhyas, works on phonetics, belonging to different schools in which the ancient texts of the Veda were handed down from generation to generation with an accuracy far exceeding that of the most painstaking copyists of MSS. Some of these works have lately been published and translated, and may be consulted by those who take an interest in these matters. *

Of late years the whole subject of phonetics has been taken up with increased ardour by scientific men, and assaults have been made from three different points by different armies, philologists, physiologists, and mathematicians. The best philological treatises I can recommend (without mentioning earlier works, such as the most excellent treatise of Bishop Wilkins, 1688), are the essays published from time to time by Mr. Alexander John Ellis,† by far the most accurate observer

* Prâtisâkhya du Rig- Veda, par M. Ad. Regnier, in the Journal Asiatique, Paris, 1856-58.

Text und Uebersetzung des Prâtisâkhya, oder der ältesten Phonetik und Grammatik, in M. M.'s edition of the Rig-Veda, Leipzig, 1856.

Das Vajasanêyi-Prâtiśâkhyam, published by Prof. A. Weber, in Indische Studien, vol. iv. Berlin, 1858.

The Atharva-Veda Prátiśâkhya, by W. D. Whitney, Newhaven, 1862. The same distinguished scholar is preparing an edition of the Prâtisâkhya of the Taittirîya-Veda. As the hymns of the Sâmaveda were chanted, and not recited, no Prâtisâkhya or work on phonetics exists for this Veda.

† Works on Phonetics by Alexander J. Ellis- The Alphabet of Nature; or, contributions towards a more accurate analysis and symbolisation of spoken sounds, with some account of the principal Phonetical alphabets hitherto proposed. Originally published in the Phonotypic Journal, June 1844 to June 1845. London and

H

and analyser in the field of phonetics. Other works by R. von Raumer,* F. H. du Bois-Reymond,†

Bath, 1845. 8vo. pp. viii. 194. The Essentials of Phonetics; containing the theory of a universal alphabet, together with its prac tical application as an ethnical alphabet to the reduction of all languages, written or unwritten, to one uniform system of writing, with numerous examples, adapted to the use of Phoneticians, Philologists, Etymologists, Ethnographists, Travellers, and Missionaries. In lieu of a second edition of the Alphabet of Nature. London, 1848. 8vo. pp. xvi. 276. Printed entirely in a Phonetic character, with illustrations in twenty-seven languages, and specimens of various founts of Phonetic type. The Ethnical Alphabet was alsɔ published as a separate tract. English Phonetics; containing an original systematisation of spoken sounds, a complete explanation of the Reading Reform Alphabet, and a new universal Latinic Alphabet for Philologists and Travellers. London, 1854. 8vo. pp. 16. Universal Writing and Printing with Ordinary Letters, for the use of Missionaries, Comparative Philologists, Linguists, and Phonologists (Edinburgh and London, 1856, 4to. pp. 22), containing a complete Digraphic, Travellers' Digraphic, and Latinic Alphabets (of which the two first were published separately), with examples in nine languages, and a comparative table of the Digraphic, Latinic, suggested Panethnic, Prof. Max Müller's Missionary, and Dr. Lepsius's Linguistic Alphabets. A Plea for Phonetic Spelling; or, the Necessity of Orthographic Reform. London, 8vo. First edition, 1844, pp. 40. Second edition, 1848, pp. 180, with an Appendix, showing the inconsistencies of hetéric orthography, and the present geographical extent of the writing and printing reform. Third edition, with an Appendix, containing the above tables remodelled, an account of existing Phonetic alphabets, and an elaborate Inquiry into the Variations in English Pronunciation during the last Three Centuries, has been in the press in America since 1860, but has been stopped by the civil war. The whole text, pp. 151, has been printed.

Gesammelte Sprachwissenschaftliche Schriften, von Rudolph von Raumer. Frankfort, 1863. (Chiefly on classical and Teutonic languages.)

† Kadmus, oder Allgemeine Alphabetik, von F. H. du BoisReymond. Berlin, 1862. (Containing papers published as early as 1811, and full of ingenious and original observations.)