English visible speech for the million : for communicating the exact pronunciation of the language to native or foreign learners, and for teaching children and illiterate adults to read in a few days.

Alexander Melville Bell

Date:: [1868]

Credit: English visible speech for the million : for communicating the exact pronunciation of the language to native or foreign learners, and for teaching children and illiterate adults to read in a few days. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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$Notes on the English Sounds. The Visible Speech Letters represent an analysis of sounds which is much more minute than any that has been attempted in pronouncing diction- aries ; and the 'Universal Alphabet' consequently enables distinctions to be presented to the eye which would be impossible of discrimination by means of ordinary letters. The nicest of these shades of difference are, however, real distinctions to the ear; and, indeed, upon such elementary minutiae all the characteristics of utterance—such as vulgar, pedantic, dialectic, or foreign—-mainly depend. Notwithstanding the number of elements into which English speech is analysed in this Work, the Native learner is not inconvenienced by the variety ; while the Foreign learner is importantly assisted by it. The benefit of the orthoepic ac- curacy will be progressively experienced by vernacular readers ; but at first they will pro- nounce words as wholes, with many points of difference, and without being able to 'spell' their sounds or to pronounce all the letters of a word with individual correctness. The beginner should not attempt to follow the refinements of the Alphabet with theoretical precision. An insen- sible comparison of letter with letter will ulti- mately give proficiency without special study; and original differences of pronunciation will in this way become gradually assimilated to the standard of uniformity. This power of direction and correction is in- herent in the mutually related symbols of Visible Speech ; but familiarity with common letters does not in any degree advance a speaker's orthoepic knowledge. Thus : ask any person to pronounce the elements of a word with the same sounds which be gives to them in the verbal combina- tion, and not one individual in a hundred will be found able to perform this analysis with exactitude. Learners of Visible Speech should first thoroughly master the CONSONANTS. When these are known, the greater part of the words in any vernacular sentence will be intelligible, without a precise knowledge of the vowels. The symbols of the latter may therefore be left to be familiarized by practice ; or they may be mastered one by one, as the learner's ear becomes capable of appreci- ating their differences of sounds, ' suppose -pp-se J all vowels to be represented by one invariable ( -11 v- -Is t- b- r-pr-s-nt-d b- -ne -nv-r—ble To make this matter perfectly clear : -I sul I s-i f mark—such as a hyphen—any person knowing I m-rk—s-ch -s h-ph-n n- p-rs-n kn - - ng f only the consonant letters, would be able to I -nl- th- c-ns-n-nt 1-tt-rs, w-ld b- -ble t- ( recognize a large proportion of the words of l r-c-gn-ze 1-rge pr-p-rt-n -f th- w-rds -f ( his own language from this imperfect writing. \ h-s -n l-ng--ge fr-m th-s -mp-rf-ct wr-t-ng. It is therefore obvious that the number of vowel marks might be multiplied indefinitely without affecting this power of recognition, which is inde- pendent of any vowel distinctions. It is to be borne in mind, further, that the Visible Speech consonants represent exact sounds, and that consequently the consonant ' skeleton' of a word is free from the ambiguities of silent and variable letters, such as the preceding illus- tration exemplifies. The pronunciation indicated in the Reading Exercises in this Work is that of educated vernacular usage. The sounds of ' unaccented' vowels, generally termed ' obscure,' are accurately defined; and the principles which govern such changes are thus made manifest in the symbols. These principles are detailed in the ' Inaugural Edition of Visible Speech,' to which the Orthoepi- cal Reader is referred. The abrupt non-vocal articulation of the ' liquids' /, m, n, ng. when before non-vocal consonants, is exhibited in the printing of such words as felt, lamp, tent, think, &c. In deliberate pronunciation, the voiceless 1, m, &c, receive an initial trace of vocality from the preceding vowel; but if an attempt be made to prolong the ' liquid' without altering its vernacular effect, the characteristic voicelessness of the latter will be demonstrated to the ear. The peculiarity of ' foreign' pronuncia- tion of these English syllables arises simply from the undue vocality which is given to the I, m, &c. The effect of the distinctive phoneticism of this system may be illustrated in the word ' mention.' Roman letters could only analyze this word into the two syllables 'men shun;' but the compact accentual utterance of ' mention' differs in two respects from that of these monosyllables. The n of 'men' is nearly or altogether non-vocal before the non-vocal sh; and the vowel sound in ' tion,' while it resembles that of ' short u,' is not quite the same. Thus B105 ^3 ] d5 (men shun;) BlO^liU (mention.) Even 'accented' syllables, in common words, when pronounced without emphasis, are liable to$