Читать книгу The Etymology and Syntax of the English Language Explained and Illustrated онлайн

13 страница из 93

I vow by God, that Jenkin is a wizard;

they say,

I fow by Cot, that Shenkin iss a wisart.

The consonants have been distributed into different classes, according to the organs chiefly employed in their formation.

The Labial are eb, ep, ef, ev. Dental ed, et, etħ, eth. Palatal eg, ek, el, er, ess, esh, ez, ej. Nasal em, en, ing.

The association of two vowels, whether the sound of each be heard or not, is called a diphthong, and the concurrence of three is called a triphthong.

Of diphthongs there are twenty, viz. ai, au, ea, ee, ei, eo, eu, ie, oa, oo, ui, ay, ey, uy, oi, oy, ou, aw, ew, ow. Of the diphthongs seventeen have a sound purely monophthongal; hence they have been called improper diphthongs. It would be idle to dispute the propriety of a term almost universally adopted; but to call that a diphthong whose sound is monophthongal is an abuse of language, and creates confusion. The only proper diphthongs in our language are eu, oi, ou, in which each vowel is distinctly heard, forming together one syllable. The triphthongs are three, eau, ieu, iew. Of these, the first eau is sometimes pronounced eu, as in beauty; sometimes o, as in beau: the other two have the diphthongal sound of eu.

Правообладателям