PART I OF THE LETTERS: And first of the VOWELS and DIPH THONGS. CHA P. I. HAT all intricacy and over réfinement may be excluded from a work defigned for general use, no other diftinction of founds will here be attempted, than the letters themselves fuggeft. Those will be confidered as fimple founds, which are reprefented by a fingle character; and thofe as compound, for the representation of which two or more letters are employed. In truth, we have in English very few real diphthongs, or compounded vowel founds; our diphthongs are used more frequently as fubftitutes, in particular fituations, for the long vowels, than as reprefentatives of founds not otherwife written. Dr. Wallis has excluded the English long i (that found peculiar to our language which occurs in the word ftrike, &c.) from the lift of fimple founds; it is compounded, he fays, of the e feminine and the confonant y. As I cannot form to myself the least idea of fuch a compofition in it, and it seems to me a found altogether as fimple as that of a or e, I have rejected the notion and I have in general avoided fubtilties of this nature, finding from experience that they perplex rather than illuftrate the fubject. For the fame reafon the enquiry whether what is given as the fhort found of a vowel be in truth the abbreviation of its own long found, or be in, ftrictness more allied to the found of fome other vowel, has been here entirely declined. Things are taken throughout as they are found in common practice, and in the fimpleft forın. Every vowel has regularly two founds peculiar to itself, and only two; a short and a long one. All other founds which they may occafionally affume, are to be confidered as irregular. In what cafes the long, and in what the fhort found must be given to any vowel, will be afcer tained by the rules of Quantity. Of the Letter A. The long found of this vowel, is that found in the words face, make, agé, &c. It is the found given in Italian to the vowel e when long; in French to the e masculine, or to the a before i, în païs. The short found of a occurs in bad, back, &c. and feems to be the fame in other languages as with us. One or other of these founds muft always be given to it, except in words comprised under the following heads. Irregular Sounds of A. A frequently has a found which by many writers has been called its open found. 1 It is the found proper to that vowel in Italian, and frequently given to it in French, as in the termination -age, and in many other inftances. In the old orthography of our language, it was often represented by au; as in daunce, graunt, &c. The following lift contains, I believe, all the words in which this found of a occurs: Where a word contains more than one a, the open one is printed in a different character. |