The advantages claimed for the system were chiefly: rapidity of learning to read, certainty of pronunciation, and increased facility in common reading, after the power of phonetic reading had been acquired. The chief disadvantages alleged against the system were: accustoming the eye to a false orthography, and teaching what had to be in great part unlearned after it was acquired. Whether the objectors were right or wrong, they were numerous, and the system failed to do more than prove that phonetic spelling simplifies the acquisition of the power of reading.
The original phonotypie alphabet, described above, has been for some years dis carded in the printing issued from the "phonetic institution" (Bath), and a more analy tic alphabet has been adopted, in which eleven, instead of seventeen, new forms are introduced. The latest edition of this alphabet gives the ordinary vowel letters A, E, I, 0 for the sounds in the words am. ell, ill, on, and the letter U for the sound in pull; K is restored, and C rejected; .1 is used as in French; and the elementary sound of nit ls still unacknowledged. The 11 new characters represent the consonants in the words she, oath, they. and (s)ing ; and the vowels in the words ale, eel, alms, old, all. pool, up.
The following are the forms of the new letters as printed and written, with a passage exhibiting their appearance in composition: This phonetic alphabet consists of 34 letters, viz., the 23 useful letters of the common alphabet (c, q, and x being rejected), and 11 new ones below, J is used for the French) (zh), or g in "edge," or s in " vision ;" hence dj represents J in John, and dg in edge. Tg sh) represents ch in chess, and tch in catch. Y and w are consonants; ?ph being replaced by hw. The vowels a, e, i, o, u have invariably the short sounds heard in pat, pet, pit, pot, put. All the other old letters have their usual signification. The italic letters in the words in the third line denote the SOUNDS of the letters.
The reduction in the number of letters from that in the Ellis and Pitman alphabet is obtained chiefly at the expense of the phonetic principle, in the attempt to analyze diph thongs in writing, before their correct phonic analysis has been ascertained and settled. A method has been proposed by Mr. Bell, in which the advantages of phoneticism might he secured, so far as simplifying the acquisition of reading is concerned, without alpha betic change. Thus the orthography and sound are shown together when the words loaf, debt, wife, wreath, straight, etc., are printed log, debt, wreath, straight, etc.
But the question recurs: Why should established orthography be unphonetic? Or, at least, why should not sonic national measures be adopted to correct the anomalies of spelling ? A similar-work was undertaken by the Spanish academy in the middle of last century, and carried out so efficiently that, at the present day, the pronunciation of any word in Spanish is immediately determined with certainty by every reader who merely knows the phonetic value of the alphabetic characters. The writing of the Italian, Dutch, and many other languages has also been successfully phoneticized. A similar result would be attained in English, if the work of orthographic revision were submitted to a competent tribunal, and if such changes as might be found necessary were duly sanc tioned by authority. New letters should be added to the alphabet kr the six unrepre
sented simple consonant sounds, Sh, Th, Dli, Wh, Ng; or, at ali events, the writing of these elements should be mule distinctive; and, with a few rules for distinguishing the vowel sounds, little alteration of spelling would be needed to approximate the writ ing of English to phonetic accuracy.
A general phonetic alphabet, available for the writing of all the sounds of human speech, is still a scientific desideratum. Such an alphabet would be of great% practical value to travelers, colonists, missionaries, and philologists. Much attention has been paid to this subject of late years. In 1854 a conference of philologists was held in London, at which two rival alphabets were produced, one by professor Lepsius of Berlin, and another by professor Max Muller of Oxford. The former has been adopted by the church missionary society, but so many local diversities in the value of the characters have been found necessary in different countries, that this "universal alphabet" has been practi cally split up into several alphabets. The writing is, besides. overladen with diacritical points. In the alphabet of professor Max Muller, the latter difficulty is obviated by a free use of compound letters. The Lectures on the Science of Language by this author may he consulted with great advantage, both as to the physiology of speech and the history of words. In the second series of these lectures, diagrams of the organicformation of many of the elements of speech are given, as well as a comparative table of four alphabets that have been used in the transcription of Sanskrit, and numerous references to the works of continental and other writers who have treated of the science of phonetics.
The most elaborate scheme of a universal alphabet hitherto published is that of Mr. A. J. Ellis. In this alphabet 94 sounds are discriminated by means of an ingenious system of compound letters, but the complexity of the writing forbids the possibility' of its " universal adoption.
The chief difficulty in the construction of a universal alphabet has arisen from the want of a complete classification of elementary sounds; another difficulty has been created by an adherence to the inadeqqate letters of the Roman alphabet. The resolutions of the alphabetic conference were decidedly in favor of Roman letters as the basis of the proposed " standard " alphabet. But the wisdom of this decision may be questioned. No existing alphabet exhibits the natural relations of the sounds it represents; and, con sequently, although an alphabet physiologically complete were framed, it could not incorporate Roman, Greek, or any other-letters at present in use, without sacrificing, the most essential qualities of a universal alphabet—simplicity and congruity. Symbols must be devised which would indicate to the eye all the organic relations discoverable by the car between the various elements, and which would be free from the associations that would attach to adopted letters familiar to the eye wish other meanings. This principle has been carried out on the system of risible speech (q.v.) by Mr. Melville Bell. For phonetic short-hand writing, see Snonir-nAND.