Dissertations on the English Language, with Notes, Historical and Critical; / to Which is Added, by Way of Appendix, an Essay on a Reformed Mode of Spelling, With Dr. Franklin's Arguments on that Subject

by Noah Webster

[60] The digraph ea seems not to have been much used in that age; for speak authors wrote speke; for dear, dere; for leaf, lefe.

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[DISSERTATION III.]

Examination of controverted Points, continued.—Of modern Corruptions in the English Pronunciation.

EXAMINATION of CONTROVERTED POINTS, continued.

In the preceding dissertation I have endeavored to settle a number of controverted points and local differences in pronunciation, on the most satisfactory principles hitherto discovered. I now proceed to some other differences of consequence to the language, and particularly in America.