4) The throat-sounds c, k, q, (qu), ch, g, (gh, gu), h, y and the compound x. c has its guttural sound, equal to the Highdutch k, where it begins the syllable with an or r after it or before obscure vowels a, o, u: climb, cross, cable, coy, cúrious, scorn, scray, sclavónian; as well as where it ends the syllable either alone or after and before a consonant: músic, plástic, talc, act, ácme, acclaim, áccident. sc before obscure vowels likewise sounds like sk. Upon ck see k. In many words a barely perceptible y-sound is made to sound after the guttural c, precisely as with k, which orthoepists indicate by a mark of elision: c'ard, k'ine, k'ite, k'ind, k'erchief; likewise after the guttural g: for example: g'uard, g'uide, g'uise, g'irl and others. k, of the same sound as the guttural c, has been compelled to serve as a substitute for the c which has passed into the hissing sound before light vowels, therefore stands at the beginning of a syllable chiefly before i, y, e, rarely, and mostly in foreign words before a, o, u, as well as before 7 and r. At the end of a syllable k appears after a long vowel or another consenant, otherwise after a short vowel in the combination ck, which is to be regarded as a reduplication of c or k, and like all double consonants, sounds single at the end of a syllable. This ck also stands in the middle of a syllable between short vowels after a short syllable: kid and kyd, key, kind, sképtic alongside of scéptic, skirmish; - kántism, káli, kóran, kúmiss; klick alongside of click, krémlin; sleek, slink, remárk, brisk, attack, clock, rankle, twinkle, knuckle, basket; láckey, attacker. In encountering g, ck assimilates itself to the g, as in blackguard (= blǎggard). q appears as k only in combination with u, which, especially in the stem after an initial q is heard as a semiconsonant w: queen, quick, quack, quádruped, quinquennial; bánquet. But qu has the simple k-sound, particularly in French and some other foreign words; seldom at the beginning of the word: quátre, quadrille; frequently at the end in combination with the mute e (que): antique, opáque, oblíque, burlésque, grotésque, cínque; pique, critique, círque, risque, cásque, mósque (also spelt mosk); also in the middle of the words: piquét, etiquette, dóquet (also spelt docket), coquét; hárlequin, pálanquin; conquer (but not in conquest), exchequer, lacquer, fáquir (also fákir), líquor; másquerade, mosquito, roqueläure; piquánt, Iroquois. ch, as a guttural, equal in pronunciation to k, rests upon nonGermanic throatsounds, except ache, wherefor also ake is used. At the beginning of a syllable it may stand before all vowels, as well as after all at the end. Commencing along with 1 and r it is always guttural, iu the combination sch, mostly equal to sk (sey sh): chyle, Chersonese, cháos, character, baldachin, Buchanan; chló rid, chrónicle, schéme, school; éunuch. hémistich, lilach, loch, choir is pronounced and also spelt like quire. g is guttural before obscure vowels a, o, u, before I and r and always at the end of a syllable, either alone or combined with and r: gab, gain, gaunt, go, goat, good, gulf, glory, grind. leg, crag, dog, eagle, shingle, eagre. Before light vowels i, y, e it stands, especially in Anglosaxon or other Germanic, also Celtic and Oriental words: gild, begin, geese, get; - Argyle, Elgin, Amager; Géber, Gibeon; also in the inverted ger instead of gre: tiger, Latin tigris, French tigre, conger, Latin congrus, French congre, and in the derivational syllable -er after an originally guttural g: singer &c. -- This is rarely the case where g in Latin or Romance words stood before a light vowel: gingly mus, gibbous and others, see below. For the nasal ng in thing, young see above p. 52. Double g in the middle of a word, unless sprung from a Latin 99, is guttural: nóggin, rúgged, dágger, giggle; and at the end in egg. While g in gh is silent at the beginning and at the end of a word, it often sounds in the middle, as in signal, malignant &c. see below. In Champignon, cógnac and other words properly French it sounds as in French. gu appears often instead of the simple guttural g (apart from the cases in which gu sounds like gw, as in Guelfs, guaiacum, guáva, guíniad, ánguish, lánguish, distinguish, extinguish, languid, language). It commonly, as in French, ensures the guttural sound before light vowels, and often in French words: guide, guile, Guisborough, Guélders; at the end, as gue: fatigue. Yet it also occurs in words originally Germanic: guess, Old-English gessen; guild and tongue, seldom instead of the expected dental g: prorógue, compare French proroger. u is idle before obscure vowels, as in guarantee, guard, guardian c. der. gh likewise sometimes represents this sound, always at the beginning: Ghibelline, ghost, Ghent, Ghauts, so also in the compound aghást. At the end it is a guttural g only in burgh c. der.; sometimes, on the other hand gh is hardened into k, in the substantives hough and shough. This sound likewise belongs to it in Celtic words: lough (Lough Neagh = lõk-ne), Léighlin (= lěklin). See above gh p. 55. h, when it appears by itself (not in combinations, like ph, th, sh, ch, gh) sounds only at the beginning of syllables (unless altogether silent), like the Highdutch h: here, hair, Hull. On its transposition in wh see w p. 55. The aspiration almost disappears before ew and u, on account of the semivowel (y) which therein sounds before u: hew, Hugh, húman, humidity, almost like yü, yuman &c. Yet the aspiration is not quite destroyed in careful pronunciation. y as a consonant, answers to the sound of the Highdutch initial j: year, yesterday, yawn, York, youth. In the middle of a Matzner, engl. Gr. I. 5 syllable it is found in foreign words, as bayard. bayonet, where it is mostly treated as a consonant (j). Some quite destroy it and say bã-ard, bã-o-net. In the context a slight sibilant can mingle with y after a word with a final dental, when that beginning with y is unaccented I'll meet you, so that here zh, as it were, sounds before y. The compound sound x is expressed by the sign which was written in Anglosaxon for hs, cs, sc and gs = sg, and in Old-French often interchanged with 8 (ss). a) It has the hard double sound ks. ) at the end of the accented syllable (having the principal or subordinate accent) in which case the s may also commence the next syllable: axe, wax, fix, axle-tree, éxit, éxercise, excellent, éxhibition, Aix-la-Chapelle, orthodóxy. So too in orthodox and such like Greek words. Except the case mentioned under c). 3) in the syllable before the accent, if the accented one begins with a fresh consonant, (h excepted): extént, expansion, exchequer. b) it sounds like gs before the accented syllable, in which a vowel or h follows the a: exist. exált, exért, exált, anxiety, auxiliary, luxúriant, exhibit, exhaust. But words derived from such with a hard a (ks) retain exceptionally, even in this case their hard sound: fixation from fix, vexation, vexatious from vex, luxation and lúxate from lux. This is also the case in doxólogy. In éxemplary, as belonging to exémplar, x, even under the accent, remains = gs. c) it sounds like ksh, analogously to the single s, tinged, before an unaccented i, with the following vowel and u (= iu): ánxious, fléxion, flexure, lúxury; yet many give to a in unfrequent derivational terminations its ks-sound, as in axiom, even in lúxury. d) at the beginning of a word it sounds like the English and mostly occurs in words originally Greek: xiphias, xístos, Xénophon, xébec. Silence of Consonants. The silence of consonants, retained in writing, rests partly upon the physiological difficulty or unaccustomedness of pronouncing them together, in which the rejection of a third between two others is particularly frequent. Much of this belongs, however, to the glibness or carelessness of conversation, which gradually becomes law. OldEnglish, with more consistency, entirely rejected the unspoken consonants. That consonants no longer sounded were still heard in the fourteenth century, prove, amongst others, alliterations in: PIERS PLOUGHMAN, as well as the following for kn: Thanne kam ther a kyng Knyghthod hym ladde (p. 7 ed. WRIGHT); Yet I courbed my knees And cried. p. 28) for wr: And yet wolde he hem no wo That wroughte hym that peyne (p. 25), and at the silence of the b in debt, doubt; of the lin calf, half; of the gh in neighbour and neigh the pedantic schoolmaster still takes offence in Shakspeare (Love's labour's lost V, I), gh was in the seventeenth century still in great part audible by an aspiration which at the least was perceptible. However, even in Old-English, the silence of consonants is not always indicated in writing. Moreover, etymological considerations have here and there restored to Modern-English consonants cast out in Old-English. 1) The nasal and liquid sounds m, n, 1, r. m is silent before m at the beginning of a word: mnemonic; thus, even in Old-English, in which mn alliterates with n: And bynam hym his mnam (uva) (PIERS PLOUGH. p. 131); also between r and in Dunfermline (= dunférlin). n, although frequently cast off, is nevertheless, after m and 7, where it is mute, often preserved in writing. It is mute after m at the end of a word: limn, hymn, contémn, damn, sólemn, autumn, column; also where a syllable beginning with a consonant is added: sólemnly; and where the inflectional termination ed with a mute e is added: límned, condemned; but not in the adjective form, where e is audible: damned. Generally, where a termination commencing with a vowel is added, n is the initial sound of the following syllable: contémner, solemnity, dámnable, autúmnal. Some grammarians except the termination ing, wherein n must remain mute, so as not to render the fundamental form unrecognizable by the inaudible sound of the stem. But this would also apply with equal justice to all other derivatives. In conversation we certainly hear himing instead of hymning, but also condĕmer instead of condemner. n is mute after in kiln, kilndry, brickkiln; hence brickkeel in southern dialects. 1 is mute, in particular, before other consonants ending a word with it, especially m, f (ve) and k, and only after obscure vowels a, o, ou; after a before m in: alms, palm, Old-French palme, paume; psalm, Old-French salme, saume; calm, qualm; calf, half, calve, calves, halves, salve (according to other sålve), chalk, French chaux, balk, walk, talk, Dundalk, Fálkland. Derivatives from these words commonly retain the rejection of the 1, for example pálmer, pálmy, quálmish, cálving, tálkative &c.; yet not for example in pálmated, pálmiped, pálmistry, palmíferous, palmetto. is mute before n in auln (aulnage) Old-French alne, aune; Calne (pronounced kâwn) and Alnwick (pronounced ännik); before s in hálse, háls er also spelt hawse, hawser. Except, among monosyllabic stems talk (talk, talck) and valve. 7 after a is moreover mute in a few polysyllables: álmond, Spanish almendra, French amande, málmsev, French malvoisie, Málmesbury, sálmon, French saumon; falcon, Old-French falcon, faucon, málkin also spelt maukin; in cháldron (= 36 bushels) some do not pronounce the 1, we also find chaudron written. The Old-English had also auter, Modern-English áltar; sauter, ModernEnglish psálter; fauhhon, Modern-English fálchion. I after o is silent in folk and yolk, in Holborn and sólder also spelt soder, in common life also in sóldier; so in the proper names Lincoln and Lángholm. I after ou is mute in would, should, to which in modern writing could has been assimilated (Old-Engl. coude). Also in vault, Old-French volte, voute, vaute some suppress the 7. At the end of a word is silent in the properly French word fusíl. Dialectically and are often thrown off; for Example in the Scotch a' all, fu’ full, ca', caa, caw call; so in Derbyshire awall &c.; also before d: bowd bold, coud = cold. It is also silent before several consonants in Chelmsford. = = r, although often sounding feebly as a guttural r, is seldom quite silent. The dental r is left out in glib utterance in the title Mrs mistress (pronounced míssiz) else, it sounds in this word. = = The guttural r is mute in Marlborough and worsted (= yarn, not in worsted defeated); also in róqelaûre many make the r inaudible, contrary to the more elegant usage. 2) The lipsounds p, b, f, (ph), v, w, wh. p is not seldom silent, especially at the beginning of a word before n, t, 8, sh mostly in Greek words: pneumátic, ptísan, Ptólemy, psalm, psálter (Old-Engl. sauter; compare The sauter seith in the Psalme. (PIERS PLOUGHM. p. 132), psychology, psóra &c., pshaw! (pronounced shaw). It is also mute betwixt m and t: attémpt, émpty, Northámpton, ademption; as well as before a final t in recéipt; compare Old-Engl. decéipt (SPENSER) now deceit. It is cast out betwixt m and f in Bámpfield, Bámpfylde; betwixt m and b it is cast out along with the assimilated 6 in Campbell (pronounced kamel); before tf in Déptford. b is mute at the beginning of a word in bdéllium (pronounced délyum). It is silent before t in debt, débtor, súbtle c. der., but not in súbtile, although Old-Engl. sotile. At the end of stems in mb and their derivatives 6 disappears: climb, comb (also in cátacomb [pronounced come]), tomb, dumb, rhumb, bomb (pronounced bum); and so climbable, climber, combed, thúmbed &c.; but not in bombard &c. Compare in Spencer frequently clim, lim, lam and the like. We except accúmb, succúmb and rhomb together with rhómbus c. der. in which b sounds decidedly. The b is also silent in ámbs-ace (pronounced amz-āce) which in Shakspeare is also spelt á mes-ace. f is mute in common life, together with in hálfpenny; it is certainly sometimes cast off in o' instead of of. |