even what the present pronunciation is, when the same words are often differently pronounced by different speakers, and those, perhaps, of equal numbers and reputation? To this it may be answered, that the fluctuation of our Language, with respect to its pronunciation, seems to have been greatly exaggerated.[1] Except a very few single words, which are generally noticed in the following Dictionary, and the words where e comes before r, followed by another consonant, as merchant, service, etc. the pronunciation of the Language is probably in the same state in which it was a century ago; and had the same attention been then paid to it as now, it is not likely even that change would have happened. The same may be observed of those words which are differently pronounced by different speakers: if the analogies of the language had been better understood, it is scarcely conceivable that so many words in polite usage would have a diversity of pronunciation, which is at once so ridiculous and embarrassing; nay, perhaps it may be with confidence asserted, that if the analogies of the Language were sufficiently known, and so near at hand as to be applicable, on inspection, to every word, that not only many words which are wavering between contrary usages would be settled in their true sound, but that many words, which are fixed by custom to an improper pronunciation, would by degrees grow regular and analogical; and those which are so already would be secured in their purity, by a knowledge of their regularity and analogy.
- ↑ The old and new Ἀτθὶς, with all the various dialects, must have occasioned infinite irregularity in the pronunciation of the Greek tongue; and if we may judge of the Latin pronunciation by the ancient inscriptions, it was little less various and irregular than the Greek. Aulus Gellius tells us, that Nigidius, a grammarian who lived a little more than a century before him, acuted the first syllabe of Valeri; but, says he, "si quis nunc Valerium appellans in casu vocandi secundum id praeceptum Nigidii acuerit primam, non aberit quin rideatur." Whoever now should place the accent on the first syllable of Valerius, when a vocative case, according to the precept of Nigidius, would set every body a laughing. Even that highly polished language the French, if we may believe a writer in the Encyclopédie, is little less irregular in this respect than our own.
"Il est arrivé," says he, "par les altérations qui se succedent rapidement dans la manière de prononcer, and les corrections qui s'introduisent lentement dans la manière d'écrire, que la prononciation et l'écriture ne marchent point ensemble, et que quoiqu'il y ait chez les peuples les plus policés de l'Europe, des sociétés d'hommes de lettres chargés des les modérer, des les accorder, et de les rapprocher de la même ligne, elles se trouvent enfin à une distance inconcevable; ensorte que de deux choses dont l'une n'a été, imaginée dans son origine, que pour réprésenter fidellement l'autre, celle-ci ne differe guère moins de celle-là, que la portrait de la même personne peinte dans deux ages très-éloignés. Enfin l'inconvénient s'est accru à un tel excès qu'on n'ose plus y remédier. On prononce une langue, on écrit une autre: et l'on s'accoutume tellement pendant le reste de la vie à cette bisarrerie qui a fait verser tant de larmes dans l'enfance, que si l'on renonçoît à sa mauvaise orthographe pour une plus voisine de la prononciation, on ne reconnoîtroit plus la langue parlée sous sette nouvelle combinaison de charactères. S'il y en a qui ne pourroient se succéder sans une grande fatigue pour l'organe, ou ils ne se rencontrent point, ou ils ne durent pas. Ils sont échappés de la langue par l'euphonie, cette loi puissante, qui agit continuellement et universellement sans égard pour l'étymologie et ses défenseurs, et qui tend sans intermission à amener des êtres qui ont les mêmes organes, le même idiôme, les mêmes mouvemens prescrits, à-peu-près à la même prononciation. Les causes dont l'action n'est point interrompue, deviennent tojours les plus fortes avec les tems, quelque foibles qu'elles soient en elles-mêmes, et il n'y a presque pas une seule voyelle, une seule diphthongue, une seule consonne dont la valeur soit tellement constante, que l'euphonie n'en puisse disposer, soit en altérant le son, soit en le supprimant."
I shall not decide upon the justness of these complaints, but must observe, that a worse picture could scarcely be drawn of the English, or the most barbarous language of Europe. Indeed a degree of versatility seems involved in the very nature of language, and is one of those evils left by Providence for man to correct: a love of order, and the utility of regularity, will always incline him to confine this versatility within as narrow bounds as possible.
