best emitted by preparing the mouth to spit, having at the grammarians are, generally speaking, very difficult indivisame time the throat dry. This pronunciation is also given duals to deal with. to the seventh letter in the Arabian alphabet, and is known Another effect is, doubtless, what affects us more nearly, also in the Russian and Polish. It may appear strange namely, the increased difficulty in acquiring foreign lan that the German ch does not prevail in the English languages. To read a language is indeed a very different} guage, being so essentially a Tentonic idiom: but there is thing from pronouncing it. Although most persons have little doubt that it did formerly exist, and has in most cases an opportunity of discovering this truth, it will not be been converted into gh, as in night, right, daughter, for the jamiss to illustrate it with an anecdote, as related by Nie. German naught, recht, tochter. buhr. The learned Danish professor of Arabic, Van Hoven, In the French, Spanish, and Italian languages, the l is on arriving in Egypt from Europe, perfectly convinced of the subject of the singular pronunciation, unknown to the his own proficiency in Arabic, was utterly confounded at English and German. It is emitted by pressing the flat- the first words he heard, having no idea of their meaning. tened surface of the tongue against the palate, and is re- The words were simply the salam alai kom, the salutation presented in French by ill, in Spanish by ll, and in Italian upon meeting; yet so different was their pronunciation by gli. It occurs in the French words fille, famille; in from what he had pictured to himself and taught in the the Spanish, in llanos, llorar; and the italian, figlia, fami- schools, that he understood nothing of their meaning. His glia. In the Polish language it has a different pronuncia-companion, Forskal, who did not know Arabian on landtion, almost unique. It is formed by doubling the tongue ing in Egypt, acquired a perfect fluency of it in fourteen up towards the bottom of the palate, and can be no other-months, whilst the Professor Von Hoven was never able to wise described to those who have not heard it, than by its understand it, or make himself understood. Our own having a resemblance to to the sound given to a word end-learned Pococke, versed as he was in the language, was ing in le in an English song, when the voice rests upon it also unable to dispense with an interpreter. Now, the pro-", for a short time, or when the word little concludes a nunciation of the Arabian is perhaps not much more diff stanza. These pronunciations are extremely difficult to cult than an European language, but having been acquired the English and Germans. The letter in the English by these persons upon a system almost the reverse of the language, as every body knows, is subject to a strange trans-correct one, they were unable to throw aside habits so formation, being in one instance pronounced as r. This long formed, and were hence unable to acquire the true occurs in the word colonel, which is invariably pronounced articulation. kurnel. After such an absurdity as this, let no one laugh,| at the peculiarities of foreign tongues. This sketch, cursory as it may be, of the differences which exist in languages, touching their first ingredient, In French and Italian, the gn has a pronunciation the alphabet, may perhaps induce the belief that nothing which is difficult to the Germans, as they have nothing| is less required than any more vacillations in pronunciaanalogous to it in their language. Our ing gives some ideation, and that the incessant promulgators of new systems of it, but it requires the tongue to be more firmly pressed are any thing but friends to the English language. against the palate than in articulating ing. The Spanish] n is more singular. In German and Flemish, the English w is pronounced as in v, and the v on the contrary as our f. The French have no w, though the same sound is given to their ou. The Italians and Poles pronounce the c in a peculiar manner; in the first place before e and i it becomes tche, tchi ; and in the latter tsa, tse, &c. before all the vowels. In the other languages, it is k and then 8, being about the most absurd letter in the alphabets of Europe. In English, in calm, it is k; in city, it is s. The same occurs in French. The Italians add an h in the hard pronunciation, and make it che. The Latin c is clearly the Greek kappa, and was so pronounced, as Kikero, Kaisar, always so written in Greek for the Latin, Cicero, Cæsar; but, notwithstanding the identity of origin to all the European grammars, such are the various anomalies and appearances it now assumes. One of the effects which the extraordinary difference thus given to the value or pronunciation of the same det ters produces, is the confusion which it introduces into geography. A German traveller, describing the countries of the East, for instance, transfers into his own language the names of places, persons, or things, as pronounced in the Turkish, Arabian, or other Eastern language. We give them a perfectly different orthography when transferred into English; and the French, again, differ from both, and so on, until very great confusion ensues. The Travels of Niebuhr, admirable as they are, have this besetting difficulty to an English and French reader; and even the Researches of the Asiatic Society are exclaimed against on the Continent on this account. Until the general European alphabet be established, which is, indeed, hopeless, these incongruities must of course continuc, as From the New Monthly Magazine. SABBATH MORNING. BY THE AUTHOR OF "CORN-LAW RHYMES. Rise, young mechanic! Idle darkness leaves Day's golden beams and all-embracing air! |