Introduction to the science of language, Volume 1 (of 2)

by A. H. Sayce

But it is time to turn from the vowels to the consonants, the skeleton, as it were, of articulate utterance. A language could consist wholly of vowels; indeed, a Polynesian dictionary contains numbers of words which have not a single consonant in them, and children frequently mark the differences between words rather by the vowels than by the consonants they contain. The earliest systems of writing other than ideographic are syllabaries and not alphabets, while alphabets like the Sanskrit ascribe an “inherent” vowel to each of their consonants. But though vowels are indispensable to an organized language, it by no means follows that they were equally indispensable to the first attempts at speech. As a matter of fact, a preponderance of vowels such as characterizes the Polynesian dialects is a sign of phonetic decay and linguistic old age. “Consonants,” says Professor Max Müller, “are much more apt to be dropped than to sprout up between two vowels.” If we had only the Greek μέρμερος or the Latin memor before us, we should have no idea that they have lost an initial sibilant; in fact, this only becomes apparent when we compare the Sanskrit smar, “to remember.” The endeavour sometimes made to reduce the Parent-Aryan alphabet to a small number of simple and easily pronounced consonants, is founded on the fallacy that the results of a phonetic analysis of the words we utter and a reduction of the sounds they contain into their leading types, is identical with the primitive alphabet of the Aryan race. On the contrary, the sounds of a language become more simplified and clearly marked the longer it continues to be spoken, and the primitive Aryan alphabet, instead of being a simple list of primary sounds, from which all that are harsh or indistinct have been carefully eliminated, must really have resembled the existing alphabets of barbarous or semi-barbarous tribes, and included a large variety of consonants, many of which we should find it extremely difficult to reproduce.

Consonants may be divided, in the first place, into hard and soft, or, as they are more usually termed, surd and sonant. A surd consonant consists of checked breath, a sonant consonant of checked voice. If, in the second place, either breath or voice is completely checked in its passage through the organs of speech, an explosive or momentary (also called a stopped or mute) consonant is heard at the moment the check is removed; if the check is not complete, and the organs of speech only approximate so that the breath cannot escape without friction, a fricative (spirant, “unstopped”) or continuous consonant is the result. Where a spirant or fricative is immediately preceded by an explosive, a double sound or affricative is the result (e.g. German pf, Armenian t’š); where the spirant follows the explosive we have the aspirated letters, which will be spoken of hereafter. Among the continuous consonants must be ranked the nasals, produced by dropping the uvula and so allowing some of the breath to make its way to the nostrils through the pharynx, and the trills produced by the vibration of the uvula, the lips, or more commonly the tongue. Distinct from the nasals and the trills are the central continuous consonants (h, ch, y, English r, w, wh, and the sibilants) formed by lifting the centre and point of the tongue to the centre and front of the palate, and the lateral continuous consonants (l, and, according to Bell, English th, f, v), in forming which the breath is allowed to escape along the edges of the tongue. A further cross division will be into liquids, gutturals, dentals, palatals, labio-dentals, and labials, to which may be added the linguals or cacuminals (cerebrals) of Sanskrit.

The Liquids.—Among the liquids should properly be reckoned only those kinds of r and l which stand to the spirant r and l in the same relation that the vowel i stands to the spirant y. In forming the vowels, as we have seen, the tongue assumes a dorsal position, that is, some part of its back is raised towards the palate; in forming the liquids, on the other hand, the tongue has either an oral (central) or a lateral position, the liquid r requiring the articulation of the centre and tip, the liquid l that of the sides. But there are several kinds of r, which may be classed as cacuminal, spirant, alveolar or dental, uvular or guttural, and laryngeal. The cacuminal r is the purest liquid r that we hear, inasmuch as it is wholly untrilled, and is especially common in cultivated English. In order to produce it, the front surface of the tongue is hollowed out into a spoon-like shape and raised towards the hard palate behind the alveolar teeth-roots of the upper jaw, while the edge of the tongue is stiffened and kept free from any sort of vibration. It will be clear from this how closely allied this cacuminal r is to the vowels, and we can easily understand the readiness with which it combines with a vowel-sound when we remember that it may be formed in almost any part of the hard palate, while the lips have free play during its creation. Corresponding to the cacuminal r is the spirant (or “buzzed”) r, which also occurs plentifully in English as in such words as try or dry. The mouth is completely closed by the tongue when sounding t or d, and if in passing to the position needed for r the tongue is not removed from the palate quickly enough, or the exspiration is not sufficiently strong, a slight fricative sound like that of sh is produced which results in the spirant r. As for the dental or alveolar r, all that is requisite to produce it is to raise the front part of the tongue, at the same time slightly arching its extreme edges, and so obtaining a constricted or “squeezed” chamber of resonance between the side of the tongue and the alveolars. This r may be untrilled, but in German it is more frequently a trilled one. The trill is caused by the force of the exspiration which strikes the thin hollowed edge of the tongue in an outward direction, the tongue the moment after returning to its former position like a piece of india-rubber. If the two edges of the front part of the tongue be pressed against the teeth, the tip of the tongue between them being alone allowed free play, and accordingly vibrating in a very small and narrow space, a sound is heard approaching that of s or sh. The stronger the uprush of breath and the vibration it occasions, the plainer will be the sibilated sound; indeed, a genuine sibilant can even attach itself to the liquid, as in the Polish rz. The uvular or guttural r is supposed by Sievers to be a modern substitution for the trilled alveolar r. At any rate it is produced by lifting the back of the tongue to the soft palate and forming a deep groove along the middle of it, in which the uvula can vibrate freely. The groove, however, is frequently left wholly or nearly unformed, the consequence being a very grating character acquired by the r, which then passes over into the sonant guttural spirant heard in sounding the modern Greek γ. The laryngeal r was first observed and described by Brücke, who makes it arise from sinking the voice so that the vocal chords cease to vibrate audibly, and merely produce intermittent and explosive sounds.

Each kind of l is formed in the same way, by raising the tip of the tongue and so closing the orifice of the mouth, at the same time allowing the breath to pass along the two sides of the tongue in successive oscillations produced by the vibrations of the elastic edges of the tongue. We may distinguish the cacuminal l in which the tip of the tongue is bent backwards as in the cacuminal r; the alveolar l with the edge of the tongue laid against the alveolars; the dental or interdental l in which the flattened surface of the tongue fills up the space between the two sides of the mouth; and the dorsal l (as in the Spanish llano) in which the tip of the tongue presses against the lower incisors, while the centre of the tongue is raised towards the alveolars of the upper teeth. The best-known variety of the cacuminal l is that of the Welsh ll formed by pressing the flattened tip of the tongue against the gums of the upper teeth and allowing the breath to escape on its right side. The same sound is heard in the Icelandic hl and l before a t, and also in Cheroki,[159] though in Icelandic the tongue is pressed against both sides of the mouth. A half-sonant, spirant l may be heard when the exspiration is strong; a surd l often occurs at the end of a word or after surd consonants (particularly t and s). The sound of the l may be made clearer or obscurer by raising or depressing the front part of the tongue, and so narrowing or enlarging the space between its edges and the teeth, and since the vowels may be pronounced with the tip of the tongue on the palate, they may readily pass into l by simply broadening the surface of the tongue.

We have already seen that the tongue is not the only organ of speech which may be “trilled.” In the Arabic grhain (غ), the Northumberland burr and the French Provençal r, grasseyé, the uvula which lies along the back of the tongue towards the teeth is very distinctly made to vibrate. “If,” Mr. A. J. Ellis says, “the tongue is more raised and the vibration indistinct or very slight, the result is the English r in more, poor, while a still greater elevation of the tongue produces the r heard after palatal vowels, as hear, mere, fire. These trills are so vocal that they form distinct syllables, as surf, serf, fur, fir, virtue, honour, and are with difficulty separable from the vowels.” The lips, too, may be trilled, the result being brh, a sound constantly heard from children.

The Nasals.—The characteristic of a nasal is, as the name declares, the participation of the nose in producing the sound. The breath passes through the nose rather than through the mouth. Sometimes, however, all that happens is the removal of the membrane which separates the nasal orifice from the pharynx; this alone is indispensable to the formation of a nasal letter. Hence its resemblance to a vowel, the buccal tube being alike silent in both cases. If we try to converse when walking uphill we shall find that the nasals are longest heard. These nasals must be classified as labial, dental, palatal, and guttural, according to the part of the speaking apparatus in which the current of air is checked in its exit, and it will be best to treat them along with the other sounds formed in the same part. It should be noted, however, that the so-called surd nasal which we hear in hm! has really, as Sievers remarks, not the slightest similarity to a nasal, but approximates to the aspirates or breathings.

The traditional division of the consonants into labial, dental, palatal, cerebral (cacuminal) and guttural, though not scientifically precise, is yet too familiar to be disregarded, and we shall therefore follow it so far as is possible. We must, however, remember at starting the primary distinction between the two classes of letters, called variously hard and soft, tenues and mediæ, surds and sonants, as well as between those called momentary (explosive) and continuous or checks and fricatives. What this distinction consists in has already been explained.

The Labials.—The labials may be subdivided into pure labials, with the formation of which the lips only have to do, and the labio-dentals, in the formation of which the teeth also participate. In pronouncing the surd p, the sonant b, the nasalized m, or the middle German w, the lips are either wholly or (as in wh) almost wholly closed. B only differs from p in being pronounced with voice instead of breath, the voice partly preceding, partly following the check occasioned by the closure of the lips. As in all sonant letters, the exspiration is less forcible than in the case of surd letters. The labio-dentals f and v are merely modifications of the rough and soft aspirates by pressing the lower lip against the upper teeth. When the lips are brought together without any interference of the teeth the spiritus lenis becomes the German w as heard in a word like Quelle. Our wh, or rather hw, and w are continuous sounds, the lips being slightly opened, the back of the tongue raised, and the breath passing over its central part.

The Dentals.—The articulation needed for the dentals is partly oral, partly alveolar, partly dorsal. The common principle, however, involved in the formation of them all is the same; the tongue must be brought against the teeth. The so-called cerebral or cacuminal dentals of Sanskrit and the Dravidian tongues (ṭ, ḍ, ṭh, ḍh) are due to oral articulation, the tongue being made convex and the lower surface raised towards the palate. The English t and d are also said to be cerebral, though the tip of the tongue is not bent very sharply backwards in forming them. Alveolar articulation is needed for the dentals when they have to be pronounced with the edge of the flattened tongue pressed against the alveolars of the upper teeth, while in dorsal articulation the point of the tongue is simply turned back against the lower teeth, its convex being at the same time lifted to the palate. It is in this way that the Bohemian dorsal t is formed. The dorsal dentals may be varied by raising the back of the tongue nearer to the mouth or the throat, the tip either resting behind the lower teeth or being raised to the upper alveolars. Besides the surd dental t and sonant dental d, we have also a series of dental spirants which bear the same relation to t and d that f and v bear to p and b. By slightly opening the teeth and stopping the aperture with the extended edges of the tongue we produce the interdental sounds heard in breath or think and breathe or then. The first th (or thorn þ) differs from the second (ð)[160] in being pronounced with the rough breathing instead of the soft breathing. They stand midway between an oral and a dorsal articulation. How readily they may pass into the labio-dentals f and v is clear at a glance; we have only to raise the lower lip a little and curl back the tongue, and our th becomes an f. Equally readily, as we shall see, is the passage from them to a sibilant. We seldom meet with an interdental consonant; Sievers, however, states that they exist in Servian and Armenian, where they regularly represent the whole class of dentals.

The Palatals.—The palatals come next. They stand between the dentals and gutturals, and are formed by throwing the middle of the tongue, raised as it were into a hump, against that part of the roof of the mouth where the hard palate begins. The sound (ch) heard in the English church or the Italian cielo is now held to be, not a palatal, but a dental (t followed by sh), and we must go to the Sanskrit (ch) as still pronounced to find a type of the whole palatal series. It “is formed most easily,” says Professor Max Müller, “if we place the tongue and teeth in the position for the formation of sh in sharp, and then stop the breath by complete contact between the tongue and the back of the teeth.” It will be seen from this that the true ch is not a double letter, a compound of t and sh or s, but a single consonant which ought to be denoted by a single character. The Sanskrit palatal ch may have had the same pronunciation as the Armenian t‘ sh,[161] as Sievers thinks, or it may have been equivalent to ky. However this may be, it is plain from the great extent of the “chamber of resonance” in which the palatals are formed—the whole of the hard palate being available for the purpose—that a large number of palatal sounds is possible. They may range, in fact, from ky to tsh. The guttural k passes easily enough into the palatalized ky, as may be seen from the pronunciation of kind and cow as kyind and kyow, not unfrequently heard in English; indeed, all that is requisite for the transition is for the front part of the tongue to assume the position needed for y, while the back part is in that needed for k. In the northern dialects of Jutland j is heard after k and g when followed by œ, e, o, and ö. The German “soft” guttural aspirate or palatal spirant in words like ich, licht, is the result of the spiritus asper passing the middle of the tongue when raised against the hard palate, y in you or yet being due to a softening of the breath, the organs of speech remaining unchanged. The palatal sibilants will have to be considered separately.