PRONUNCIATION, the act of uttering words or articulate sounds of the voice. The alphabetic characters are designed to represent with more or less precision the voice-sounds of a language, and if all those sounds have each its proper sign, a written word will be a sure index of its pronunciation. The alphabet of the Spanish language is nearly perfect in this respect. In Spanish the vowels have each one quality of sound: in whatever situation, they have each but one value and a, e, i, o and is are pronounced respectively as a in father, ei in rein, ee in see, o in lone and oo in moon. The consonants, too, have only one sound, ex cept that before the vowels a, o and u and be fore consonants, c has the sound of k and g the hard sound of g in get; also, to represent special sounds, 1 is doubled (lleow, pron. lyaino) or a diacritical mark is used (ono, pron. ahnyo). Not so in English. In English each of the vowel and consonant signs desig nates various sounds. Thus the vowel sign a denotes at least six different vowel sounds; e at least four; i at least three; o (including oo) seven and is in four; often they are silent, representing no sound. Many of the con sonants, too, though not to the same extent as the vowels, represent each, whether singly or compounded, two or more different sounds; examples: cede, call, child, machine, chemic. Other consonants which stand for more than one sound are s (sat, has, sure), t (tan, thin, thine, nation), is (sin, sing), etc.
The different sounds represented by the vowel sign a are: (1) the short vowel sound which it of tenest represents: it is heard in man, cab; this sound is almost peculiar to English; it differs slightly from the short a of French and considerably from the short a of German; Germans who are beginning to learn English have difficulty at first to producing this English vowel and instead of man say men, het in stead of hat. (2) The long sound of a as in hate, late; its sound is that represented in other languages by the second vowel e; in German and other languages the sound of the word bane would be represented by ben or behn or ben, etc. (3) The sound of a (however repre sented—by a, or ei, or ea, etc.)—before r in the same syllable, as in share, bear. A vulgar mispronunciation of such words is char, bar; in Irish pronunciation the a in share, bear, pear, etc., has precisely the same sound as in shape, lane, bane. (4) The sound of a in father, calm, far: this is usually styled the Italian sound of a. (5) The sound of a in ask, branch, pass, differing from the pronunciation of the same letter in at, tan, pan: it is the short sound of the a in father. In England and New England the distinction is made between the sound of a in branch, ask, etc., and the a in barn, ran; elsewhere in the United States it is not ob served. (6) The sound of a in all, warm, talk, is peculiar to English; it is much broader than a in German words all, fall. (7) The sound of a in what, wander, is peculiar to English; it is represented by o in not, gone, etc. The sounds of e are (1) its short sound as in net, sent; (2) the long sound as in obese. mete, green; this sound is represented in most other languages by the third vowel i; (3) the sound which it has in vein, rein; in other languages this is the primary sound of this vowel; (4) the sound, peculiar to English, which it has before the letter r as in per, confer. Three
sounds are represented by i; namely: (1) the short sound as in pin, bin; (2) the correspond ing long sound as in marine: this is the regular sound of i in other languages; in English i is so sounded only in a few words; (3) the long sound heard in pine, ride: this is a diphthong and equal to ei or ai. The vowel o represents the following sounds: (1) Its primary sound in English and other languages, as in ode, lone; (2) a short sound peculiar to English, as in not, nod: this is not the o of ode shortened; the shortened o of ode is unknown in English; (3) the obscure short sound (same as that of is in but) heard in other, son, done; (4) the sound heard in prove, move: this is the long vowel u of German, Spanish, etc., and the ass of French; (5) the same sound shortened, as in wool, book, took; (6) a sound closely re sembling that of a in all: it occurs when o is followed by r in the same syllable, as in order, corner; in Irish pronunciation this o has the same sound as a in all. sounds repre sented by u are: (1) that heard in rule, rumor, Lucifer: here it is equal to oo in moon, and it represents the sound of u in German, Spanish, Italian, etc., but not in French; (2) the cor responding short sound heard in put, bull; (3) the peculiar sound given it before r in the same syllable, as in urge, urn; (4) the diph thongal sound that it has in union, pure: here it is equal to yu or eu. In the United States long is after 1 has always the sound of oo in ooze; but dictionaries which represent the pro nunciation of such words as lurid, lute, in Eng land, give to the is the same value it has in cure, that is, the diphthongal sound (l'yurid, l'yuce), though in the same dictionaries the is in lung, lunary, ludicrous, etc., is represented the same as in rule. In the United States the is in such words as duty, tulip, is commonly mispro nounced as dooty, toolip, instead of d'yuty, tyulip; the Irish mispronunciation of such words is jooty, tshoolip.
In the pronunciation of various consonants English is peculiar or differs from other lan guages in sundry respects; for example, ch in English words is equal to tsh (chat) or to sh (chivalry) or to k (chemism). The d and t of English are pronounced with the tip of the tongue touching the gums well above the teeth•, in other languages the contact is at the roots of the teeth. The th in thin is almost peculiar to English, but the same sound exists in Spanish; the sound of th in thy, that, is peculiar to Eng lish. In Irish pronunciation the sound of th in thank, thousand, is produced by firm contact of the end of the tongue with the teeth and forcible emission of the breath. In the Irish pronunciation of thy, that, there fs also contact of the tongue with the teeth and gums. For the value of the letters and their combinations in other languages see the articles on these languages and consult the works referred to under these heads. Consult also Bloomfield, Leonard, 'Introduction to the Study of Lan guage' (New York 1914) ; Passy, Paul, phonetique comparee des principales langues europeennes> (2d ed., Leipzig 1912); Soames, Laura, to English, French and German Phonetics' (3d ed., London 1913) ; ViEtor, T. W., (Elements der Phonetik des Deutschen, Englischen and (6th ed., Leipzig 1914). See ACCENTS.