Volume 1

The lost senses / By John Kitto.

  • John Kitto
Date:
1845
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The lost senses / By John Kitto. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    instinct which has, in the course of time, been developed, of avoiding the use of those words about the pronunciation of which I feel in any degree uncertain, or which I know myself liable to mis- pronounce. This is particularly the case with proper names and foreign words; although, even in such, I am more in dread of erroneous quantity than of wrong vocalization. I need not point out the serious obstacle which this condition of atfairs offers to any attempt to acquire the vocal use of a foreign language. This use of German, in which the words are written as pronounced, and in which the syllables are distinctly brought out, might perhaps be acquired with less difficulty than many other languages. Indeed, of foreigners acquainted with English, with whom I have at any time con- versed, none have understood me with so little difficulty as Germans. So remarkably distinct does my speech appear to them, that if I am talk- ing in the presence of Germans and Englishmen equally strangers to me, the chances are more than equal that the Germans will understand me far better than the Englishmen. In this, however, there is another reason than has yet appeared. In the new, or rather mixed lano'uagre with which I recommenced my vocal operations, there was a marked absence of all colloquial idioms and contractions. I knew them and had used them, but I became as morally unable to pronounce them as I had been to speak at all. I no longer said, can't you, won't you, don't you, &c., but can you not, will you not, do you not. I was even shy of cannot, and always, when I used it at all, made two very distinct words of it, can jiot. This extended to all words or phrases capable
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