Speech is of breath-sounds with sundry breathings, hard or mild, and breath-pennings, which become words.
(1) A freely open breathing through the throat, unpent by tongue or lips, as in the sounds A, E, O, OO, which are pure voicing. The main ones in English are—
- 1. ee, in meet.
- 2. e, in Dorset speech.
- 3. a, in mate.
- 4. ea, in earth.
- 5. a, in father.
- 6. aw, in awe.
- 7. o, in bone.
- 8. oo, in fool.
Besides this open speech-breathing there are two kinds of breath-penning.
(2) The dead breath-penning, as in the sounds AK, AP, AT, AG, AB, AD, which end with a dead penning of the sounding breath.
In AK and AG it is pent in the throat.
In AP and AB with the lips.
In AT and AD on the roof.
K, P, T are hard pennings; G, B, D are mild pennings, the breathing being harder in the former and softer in the latter.