Society for Pure English Tract 4 by John Sargeaunt


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Page 3

In very long words the due alternation of stressed and unstressed
vowels was not easy to maintain. There was no difficulty in such
a combination as _h�nor�fic�bil�_ or as _tud�nit�tib�s_, but
with the halves put together there would be a tendency to say
_h�nor�ficabilit�dinit�tibus_. Thus there ought not to be much
difficulty in saying _C�nstant�nop�lit�ni_, whether you keep the long
antepenultima or shorten it after the English way; but he who forced
the reluctant word to end an hexameter must have had 'Constantin�ple'
in his mind, and therefore said _Const�ntin�polit�ni_ with two false
stresses. The result was an illicit lengthening of the second _o_.
His other false quantity, the shortening of the second _i_, was
due to the English pronunciation, the influence of such words as
'metropol[)i]tan', and, as old schoolmasters used to put it, a neglect
of the Gradus. Even when the stress falls on this antepenultimate
_i_, it is short in English speech. Doubtless Milton shortened it in
'Areopagitica', just as English usage made him lengthen the initial
vowel of the word.

Probably very few of the Englishmen who used the traditional
pronunciation of Latin knew that they gave many different sounds to
each of the symbols or letters. Words which have been transported
bodily into English will provide examples under each head. It will be
understood that in the traditional pronunciation of Latin these words
were spoken exactly as they are spoken in the English of the present
day. For the sake of simplicity it may be allowed us to ignore some
distinctions rightly made by phoneticians. Thus the long initial vowel
of _alias_ is not really the same as the long initial vowel of _area_,
but the two will be treated as identical. It will thus be possible to
write of only three kinds of vowels, long, short, and obscure.

The letter or symbol _a_ stood for two long sounds, heard in the first
syllables of _alias_ and of _larva_, for the short sound heard in the
first syllable of _stamina_, and for the obscure sound heard in the
last syllable of each of these last two words in English.

The letter _e_ stood for the long sounds heard in _genus_ and in
_verbum_, for the short sound heard in _item_, and for the obscure
sound heard in _cancer_. When it ended a word it had, if short, the
sound of a short _i_, as in _pro lege_, _rege_, _grege_, as also in
unstressed syllables in such words as _precentor_ and _regalia_.

The letter _i_ stood for the two long sounds heard in _minor_ and in
_circus_ and for the short sound heard in _premium_ and _incubus_.

The letter _o_ stood for the two long sounds heard in _odium_ and in
_corpus_, for the short sound in _scrofula_, and for the obscure in
_extempore_.

The two long sounds of _u_ are heard in _rumor_, if that spelling
may be allowed, and in the middle syllable of _laburnum_, the two
short sounds in the first _u_ of _incubus_ and in the first _u_ of
_lustrum_, the obscure sound in the final syllables of these two
words. Further the long sound was preceded except after _l_ and _r_ by
a parasitic _y_ as in _albumen_ and _incubus_. This parasitic _y_ is
perhaps not of very long standing. In some old families the tradition
still compels such pronunciations as _moosic_.

The diphthongs _�_ and _oe_ were merely _e_, while _au_ and _eu_ were
sounded as in our _August_ and _Euxine_. The two latter diphthongs
stood alone in never being shortened even when they were unstressed
and followed by two consonants. Thus men said _[=Eu]stolia_ and
_[=Au]gustus_, while they said _[)�]schylus_ and _[)OE]dipus._ Dryden
and many others usually wrote the _�_ as _E_. Thus Garrick in a letter
commends an adaptation of 'Eschylus', and although Boswell reports him
as asking Harris 'Pray, Sir, have you read Potter's _�schylus_?' both
the speaker and the reporter called the name _Eschylus_.

The letter _y_ was treated as _i_.

The consonants were pronounced as in English words derived from Latin.
Thus _c_ before _e_, _i_, _y_, _�_, and _oe_ was _s_, as in _census_,
_circus_, _Cyrus_, _C�sar_, and _coelestial_, a spelling not classical
and now out of use. Elsewhere _c_ was _k_. Before the same vowels _g_
was _j_ (d[ezh]), as in _genus_, _gibbus_, _gyrus_. The sibilant was
voiced or voiceless as in English words, the one in _rosaceus_, the
other in _saliva_.

It will be seen that the Latin sounds were throughout frankly
Anglicized. According to Burney a like principle was followed by
Burke when he read French poetry aloud. He read it as though it were
English. Thus on his lips the French word _comment_ was pronounced as
the English word _comment_.

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Books | Photos | Paul Mutton | Thu 28th Mar 2024, 13:44