The Grammar of English Grammars

by Goold Brown

APPENDIX I. TO PART FIRST, OR ORTHOGRAPHY. OF THE SOUNDS OF THE LETTERS.

In the first chapter of Part I, the powers of the letters, or the elementary sounds of the English language, were duly enumerated and explained; for these, as well as the letters themselves, are few, and may be fully stated in few words: but, since we often express the same sound in many different ways, and also, in some instances, give to the same letter several different sounds,—or, it may be, no sound at all,—any adequate account of the powers of the letters considered severally according to usage,—that is, of the sound or sounds of each letter, with its mute positions, as these occur in practice,—must, it was thought, descend to a minuteness of detail not desirable in the first chapter of Orthography. For this reason, the following particulars have been reserved to be given here as an Appendix, pertaining to the First Part of this English Grammar.