Of all the languages which employ the Latin alphabet, the English is the worst repre sented; in some measure because of the rich variety of its phonic elements, but chiefly because, of all the nations which have adopted Latin letters, the English have done least to make their writing phonetic. Every attempt to correct the anomalies of our orthography has rowed a host of prejudices, against which the efforts of private indi viduals have been powerless. The difference between phoneticians and their opponents seems to he a fundamental difference as to what really constitutes a word. The former, maintaining this sound to be the true word, would discard all associations dependent on letters, in order to represent the exact sound in the simplest manner; the latter, clinging to the literal associations of orthography, argue as if the verbal cluster of letters in reality constitnted the word. The dispute is thus, in effect, between letters and sounds; which are the signs—which the thing signified? In phonetic writing, the eye would no doubt confound such words as know and no, see and sea, sighs and size, when written separately, as in a vocabulary; but it cannot be supposed that such words would present more ambiguity in contextual usage than they now do in utterance, subject to the same confusion to the ear. At present we have, in fact, two languages—one purely phonic, addressed to the ear; and the other, in some degree etymological or historical, addressed to the eye. In this respect, we are in a similar position to the Chinese, with their classical ideographic language of literature, and their multitudinous vernacular dialects. In order to establish the assertion, that the phonic word (the sound) written phonetically in a sentence would be less intelligible to the eye than the written word in its present form, it is incumbent on the opponents of phoneacism to show that the simple phonic word is now less intelligible when pro nounced in a sentence, than its written symbol is when read in a sentence.
The principal objection urged against phonetic writing is, that it would obscure the etymological history now discoverable in the orthography of a word. The best answer to this objection is that the traces of etymology, preserved in the present spelling, are so imperfect and inconsistent as to be of little value compared with the embarrassments they occasion in other respects.
The first requisite for the construction of a phonetic alphabet is an exact knowledge of elementary sounds, that every element may be provided with its appropriate symbol, and that no more symbols may be introduced than there are distinct elementary sounds. The latter consideration would be of importance only in connection with a general alpha bet available for all languages. An alphabet for any individual language might contain symbols for compound sounds, with no other disadvantage than that of adding to the number of symbols. It would not, for instance, be of any consequence, so fur as pho netic writing is concerned, whether the word savks were represented by the letters sales, sacs, or sax, so that the symbols used were invariably appropriated to the same sounds. Orthoepists and phoneticians are not agreed as to what elements compose ninny of our compound sounds, such as those heard in the words chair, queen, tune, I, out, etc. Any attempt, therefore, at representing compounds analytically would be premature, until the analysis of the compounds had been settled. This analysis would be absolutely necessary for a general alphabet, but not so for an alphabet forany single language. Phonetic writing, then, should be separately considered, as a means of representing the elementary sounds of all languages, and as a method of symbolizing the pronunciation of any one language only. We shall now show the nature of the attempts that have
been made for the phonetic writing of English.
Dr. Franklin, in 1768, proposed a phonetic alphabet for English, in which new sym bols were intreduced for the vowels heard in the words on and up, and the four conso nants heard in the words she, they, and thing. Many otlitr schemes have been from time to time proposed; but the only alphabets which have been practically applied on a large scale are those of Dr. Comskock in America, and Messrs. Ellis and Pitman in England. The object of experimenters in this department has generally been to make use of exist ing letters as far as possible, and only to supplement deficiencies by new forms. The com mon alphabet has been made to furnish almost a sufficient number of characters by the inversion of some of its letters—thus, n, S, a, o, e, etc . as in the " ant4-absurd " alphabet of maj. Beniowski; but the best scheme of phonotypes that has yet been intro duced was the joint production of Mr. Isaac Pitman, the inventor of the first system of phonetic shorthand writing, and Mr. A. J. Ellis, B.A. of Cambridge, a most accom plished mathematician and linguist. This alphabet was completed in 1847; and the experiment of its introduction was carried out with great diligence and perseverance by its promoters, until an army of philanthropic assistants became enlisted in all parts of Great Britain and America. Primers and school-books were issued, and tested on juve nile and adult classes; many works of standard literature, and even the entire Bible, were translated into the new spelling; magazines were published, and ultimately a news paper, printed in the phonetic character, was started by the enterprising orthographic reformers. In this scheme of phonotypes, dipthongal and articulate CO1111)01211015 Were not analyzed, and the letters of the ordinary alphabet were retained in their most com mon signification, 17 new characters being introduced for unrepresented or ambiguously written sounds. The forms of these were, in most cases, happily suggestive of the dis placed orthography, and the general aspect of the writing bore such a resemblance to common typography, that any good reader of the latter could decipher the new printing with ease, after a very brief study of the alphabet. The ordinary vowel letters (A, E, 1, 0, 11) were pronounced as in the words am, ell, ill, on, up; the consonants C and G were sounded as in came and game; the letters K, Q, X were rejected as superfluous, and all the other letters of the common alphabet were retained, with their established sounds. Comparimr !his scheme of letters with the tabulated elementary sounds of English, we find that it represents all the vowels, except the nice varieties heard in the words air, ore, err, ask.; and qtat all the consonants are accurately represented except leh. The latter element is written by letters sounding hoo, so that the words trhere and whoe'er are made identical to the eye; sentence, "I saw the man whet the knife," is written, " I saw the man who ate the knife." Notwithstanding these imperfections, this alphabet was found to work well among those who were dispose° for a reform. The phonetic method was proved to he remark ably simple and easy in comparison with the ordinary system; the time occupied in making fluent readers was greatly reduced; and readers of phonetic printing experienced but little dilliculty in the transition to reading from common orthography.