Duality of Voice

by Emil Sutro

It is but necessary to comprehend the laws which underlie this apparent weakness to turn it to its best account, and to obtain from it the highest results, both for speech and song. As for the "weakness of the muscles which draw the cords together," it will scarcely be necessary for me to make a specific refutation; the premises upon which such assumption is founded being quite untenable, there being quite as much vigor in the muscles and cords of an Anglo-Saxon as in those of any other nation. Nor, I suppose, will it be necessary to strengthen my assertions by once more quoting the separate words and thus pointing out the iambic, the rise after the fall (˘¯), or the anapest (˘˘¯), the twofold repose and gathering of strength for the final emphasis.

The English language in its Saxon words mainly consists of monosyllables. These, however, as stated, must be looked upon as words of two syllables, a suppressed intonation always preceding their vowel sounds. The majority of such words, as a matter of fact, originally consisted of two syllables, of which the last was dropped when they were adopted by the English. This last syllable, representing the fall of the voice thus disappearing, left the first, which represented its rise, standing unsupported by itself. As the rise of the voice, however, cannot be expressed without the accompaniment of its fall, the latter always tacitly accompanies the same, and is expressed in an undertone, preceding the rise.

Almost every verb of this class will give evidence of this fact:

´ ` ´ ´ ` ´ ´ ` ´
Gehen--go, sehen--see, hoeren--hear,
´ ` ´ ´ ` ´ ´ ` ´
sprechen--speak, kochen--cook, tanzen--dance,
´ ` ´
fallen--fall, etc.

Hence, in conformity with the above, these words in the English language should be properly marked thus:

`´ `´ `´ `´ `´ `´
Go, see, hear, speak, cook, dance, etc.

which gives the real intonation thereof.

This applies to all words commencing with a vowel, and explains what Mr. Lunn has designated as a "weakness of the English language":

`´ `´ `´ `´ `´ `´ `´
Art, arm, or, all, eagle, each, old, etc.

Without this half-suppressed fall of the voice, there would be no beauty, no charm, no soul in the English language; in fact, it could not exist. Words of two syllables, however, always have the fall of the voice on the first, its rise on the second, syllable, even where the preponderance of time belongs to the first syllable, as in the words