§ 6. On Standard Pronunciation.

For at least a century, since Buchanan published his "Essay towards establishing a standard for an elegant and uniform pronunciation of the English language throughout the British dominions, as practised by the most learned and polite speakers," in 1766, and probably for many years previously, there prevailed, and арparently there still prevails, a belief that it is possible to erect a standard of pronunciation which should be acknowledged and followed throughout the countries where English is spoken as a native tongue, and that in fact that standard already exists, and is the norm unconsciously followed by persons who, by rank or education, have most right to establish the custom of speech.

One after another, for the last century, we have had labourers in the field. Buchanan, 1766, was a Scotchman, and his dialect clung to him; Sheridan, 1780, was an Irishman, and Johnson, from the first, ridiculed the idea of an Irishman teaching Englishmen to speak. Sheridan was an actor, so was Walker, 1791, but the latter had the advantage of being an Englishman, and his dictionary is still in some repute, though those who study it will see his vain struggles to reconcile analogy with custom, his constant references to the habits of a class of society to which he evidently did not belong, his treatment of pronunciation as if determined by orthography (precisely in the same way as grammarians consider grammar to mould language, whereas both orthography and gram

1 "BOSWELL: It may be of use, Sir, to have a Dictionary to ascertain the pronunciation. JOHNSON: Why, Sir, my Dictionary shews you the accent of words, if you can but remember them. BOSWELL: But, Sir, we want marks to ascertain the pronunciation of the vowels. Sheridan, I believe, has finished such a work. JOHNSON: Why, Sir, consider how much easier it is to learn a language by the ear, than by any marks. Sheridan's Dictionary may do very well; but you cannot always carry it about with you: and, when you want the word, you have not the Dictionary. It is like the man who has a sword that will not draw. It is an admirable sword to be sure: but while your enemy is cutting your throat you are unable to use it Besides, Sir, what entitles Sheridan to fix the pronunciation of English? He has, in the first place, the disadvantage of being an Irishman: and if he says he will fix it after the example of the best company, why they differ among themselves. I remember an instance: when I published the plan for my Dictionary,

Lord Chesterfield told me that the word great should be pronounced to rhyme to state; and Sir William Yonge sent me word that it should be pronounced so as to rhyme to seat, and that none but Irishmen would pronounce it grait. Now here were two men of the highest rank, the one the best speaker in the House of Lords, the other the best speaker in the House of Commons, differing entirely." Boswell's Life of Johnson, anno. 1772, æt. 63. Dr. Johnson, however, had his own fancies: "I perceived that he pronounced the word heard, as if spelled with a double e, heerd, instead of sounding it herd, as is most usually done. He said, his reason was, that if it were pronounced herd, there would be a single exception from the English pronunciation of the syllable ear, and he thought it better not to have that exception." Ibid, anno 1777, æt. 68. Dr. Johnson had forgotten heart, hearken, wear, bear, to tear, swear, earl, pearl, which all orthoepists of his time pronounce differently from ear. On great, seat, see suprà, p. 87.

mar are casts, one of speech sounds, and the other of speech combinations); in short, in almost every part of his "principles," and his "remarks" upon particular words throughout his dictionary, they will see the most evident marks of insufficient knowledge, and of that kind of pedantic self-sufficiency which is the true growth of half-enlightened ignorance, and may be termed "usherism." Walker has done good and hard work; he has laid down rules, and hence given definite assertions to be considered, and he has undoubtedly materially influenced thousands of people, who, more ignorant than himself, looked upon him as an authority. But his book has passed away, and his pronunciations are no longer accepted. Jones, 1798; Perry, 1805; Enfield, 1807; Fulton, 1821; Jameson, 1827; Knowles, 1835, need not be more than named. The last was a corrector and follower of Sheridan. Smart's Walker Remodelled, 1836, and Worcester's Critical and Pronouncing Dictionary, 1847, are those now most in vogue. Smart was a teacher of elocution in London, who enjoyed a considerable reputation; Worcester is an American. In both of these we have a distinct recognition of the vowels in unaccented syllables, but by no means a distinct representation of the same; and in Smart we have great consideration bestowed upon the final vocal r (1), and its dipththongal action on the preceding vowel.

The vocabulary of our language is so much more copious than the vocabulary of any individual, and the vocabulary of any writer is so much more copious than the vocabulary of the same man as a speaker-unless he be a public orator, a clergyman, a lecturer, a barrister, an actor,—and the orthography of our language conveys so little information upon the intended pronunciation of any word, that there will be many thousand words that even the most accomplished and varied speakers and hearers have never uttered or heard; and other thousands which they have only on the rarest occasions uttered and heard, of the sound of which they must therefore be more or less in doubt, unless they feel that confidence in themselves which will allow them to assert that their own pronunciation is correct, because it is their own.1 By far the greater number of

1 I do not remember ever meeting with a person of general education, or even literary habits, who could read off without hesitation, the whole of such a list of words as: bourgeois, demy, actinism, velleity, batman, beaufin, brevier, rowlock, fusil, flugleman, vase, tassel, buoy, oboe, archimandrite, etc., and give them in each case the same pronunciation as is assigned in any given pronouncing dictionary now in use. Dr. Kitto, who lost his hearing at twelve years of age, but retained his power of speech, says: (The Lost Senses, 1845, Series 1, Deafness, p. 23) "I have often calculated that above two-thirds of my vocabulary consist of

words which I never heard pronounced. From this result some peculiarities not unworthy of notice. Many of the words of my old vocabulary continue to be pronounced in the provincial dialect in which they were learned, such as tay for tea, even though I know the right pronunciation, and generally recollect the error after it has been committed. I know not that I should regret this, as it seems to give to my language a living character, which it would necessarily want, if all framed upon unheard models. Many such words do not, however, occur, as I have exchanged many provincialisms for book words, which I am not in the same way liable

speakers, however, do not feel this confidence, and, afraid that the sounds they are accustomed to use in their own limited circles would be ridiculed in the higher walks to which they aspire, are glad to take the "authority" of a pronouncing dictionary as a guide. Quis autem custodiet ipsos custodes? What guide do the guides follow?

Now our previous investigation shews that at any given time there has always existed a great diversity of pronunciation, and that pronunciation has altered with different velocities and in different directions in different places, that what was considered "polite" at one time, was scouted at another, that there never has been so near an approach to a uniform pronunciation as that which now prevails, and that that uniformity itself is not likely to be so great as might have been anticipated.

Uniformity of pronunciation, necessarily depends upon the proximity of speakers. We have seen that the great changes in English were produced by the two civil wars, which mixed up the elements of our population. In more recent times a certain degree of uniformity is sustained, by 1) that communication between town and country which disseminates the habits of the metropolis throughout the provinces; 2) that system of university education which rubs together the different dialects of England in a classical mortar, and sends out the product as the utterance of young men of rank and fortune, and still more effectively, as that of young clergymen throughout the length and breadth of our land, and 3) that plan of teaching teachers which instils into them the pronunciation of the most usual words and enables them to impress it upon their pupils in the primary schools throughout the country. But that nothing approaching to real uniformity prevails is easily seen, and some striking illustrations will be furnished in Chap. XI.

When we listen to a discourse we are by natural habit carried away with the succession of ideas, and we have great difficulty in withdrawing our attention from this, and fixing it merely upon the sounds which are uttered. Any one, however, who wishes to study

to mispronounce. But even my book words, though said to be generally pronounced with much precision, are liable to erroneous utterance through my disposition to give all such words as they are written, and it is well known that the letters of which many of our words are composed, do not adequately represent the sounds with which they are pronounced. This error of pronouncing words as they are written is the converse of that so common among uneducated people, of writing words down according to their sounds. Many of such faults have, however, been corrected in the course of years, and it may not now be easy to detect me in many errors of this kind: but this arises not more from such cor

rections, than from the curious instinct which has, in the course of time, been developed, of avoiding the use of those words about the pronunciation of which I feel myself uncertain, or which I know myself liable to mispronounce. This is particularly the case with proper names and foreign words; although, even in such, I am more in dread of erroneous quantity than of wrong vocalization." The above test words, which are not all to be found even in Worcester's dictionary, written in glossotype according to my pronunciation, would be burjóys, deemúy, áktiniz'm, veléeiti, bauman, biffin, breevéer, rulluk, fiwzée, fiwg'lman, vauz, tos'l, boy, ohboy, áhrkimándruyt.

pronunciation must be able to do this. It is entirely insufficient and misguiding to ask a person to pronounce you a given word. The most you can do is to propound him a sentence, and listen to him with closed eyes as he repeats it over and over again. Then you will probably detect differences of utterance at each delivery, differences which it requires years of care and attention to discriminate and symbolize satisfactorily. Even then, too, each delivery may be false, that is, not such as the speaker would utter naturally, when he was thinking of the meaning and not of the sound of the words. Listen to a preacher, shutting out your sense to his meaning, and observe the alternations of loud, distinct, slow, and scarcely audible, obscure, rapid utterances. Listen to the same man engaged in ordinary conversation, and observe the increase of the rapid, obscure utterances, and the difference occasioned in the tolerably distinct syllables by the difference of emphasis and delivery. Then think how difficult it is to determine the real pronunciation of that one man. How much more difficult must it be to determine and then bear in mind the pronunciation of thousands of other people, whom you only hear occasionally and observe less frequently, because you wish to know what, not how, they speak. And yet this has to be done by any one who wishes to discover what is the real actual existing usage of English speech. It is needless to say that it is not done. Certain associations of childhood determine the direction of pronunciation, certain other habits and associations of youth and early maturity, serve to modify the original, and, if the speaker inclines to consider speech, he may artificially "correct," and at any rate, materially change his habits of pronunciation in after life, but this is an exception. He soon ceases to hear words, he drinks in ideas, and only glaring differences which impede this imbibition, strike him and are, more or less falsely, noted. He is in the habit of using an orthography which not only does not remind him of the sounds of words, but gives him the power of deducing great varieties of pronunciation for unknown words. What chance then have we of a uniform pronunciation?

"the

What is the course actually pursued by those who seek to determine a standard of pronunciation? Dr. Johnson laid down as best general rule, to consider those as the most elegant speakers who deviate least from the written words." 1 This was entirely theoretical, and was penned in ignorance of the historical variations of the orthoepical significance of the "written words." Walker asks whether the custom of speech to be followed is the ". usage of the multitude of speakers, whether good or bad," epithets which beg the question, "the usage of the studious in schools and colleges, with those of the learned professions, or that of those who, from their elevated birth or station, give laws to the refinements and elegancies of a court ?" and replies that it is "neither of these.. taken singly, but a sort of compound ratio of all three," which expression, knowing what compound ratio means, I do not profess to understand. He goes on to say, "Neither a finical pronun

1 Preface to Dictionary.

ciation of the Court,"-(is then Court pronunciation necessarily finical?"nor a pedantic Græcism of the schools," -(does this eixst?)"will be denominated respectable usage till a certain number," (what proportion?) "of the general mass of common speakers," i.e. those who are neither courtly nor educated? "have acknowledged them; nor will a multitude of common speakers authorize," (to whom?) "any pronunciation which is reprobated by the learned and polite. As those sounds, therefore," he concludes, "which are the most generally received among the learned and polite; as well as the bulk of speakers are the most legitimate," i.e. according to law, but what or whose law ?" we may conclude that a majority of two of these states ought always to concur, in order to constitute what is called" by Mr. John Walker, "good usage.' But how does Mr. John Walker, of Colney Hatch, determine the usages of each of the three classes he has named, but certainly not defined? Smart seems to take refuge in "the mouth of a well-educated Londoner," presumably his own, and he talks of "vulgar speakers, ," "an appearance of pedantry," "quite rustic," " 'speakers of the old school," "metropolitan usage among educated people," "a vulgar mouth," "an affected speaker," "the best speakers," "distinct utterance," "obscure or colloquial utterance," "irrregularity," "vulgarism," "current pronunciation," "actual pronunciation," "broad utter"affectation," 66 ance," the most solemn speaking," " vague and fluctuating,' ," "elegant speaker," etc., etc., words and epithets implying theories or foregone conclusions, but not greatly advancing our knowledge. We may then repeat the question, what is the course actually pursued by these orthoepical oracles? It appears that they have observed somewhat, thought out, practised and taught more, till they have confirmed a usage in themselves, and have then announced that usage to be the custom of the "best speakers,' allowing occasional latitude. Worcester endeavours to judge between past orthoepists, and among them allots the palm to Smart, but frequently gives several different pronunciations and says that "the reader will feel perfectly authorized" by Mr. Worcester? "to adopt such a form as he may choose." "The compiler" he adds, "has not intended in any case, to give his own sanction" to which, however, he seems to attribute considerable weight, "to a form which is not supported by usage," (which he has not heard generally used ?) "authority," (which some previous orthoepist has not recommended?) "or analogy," (as derived from orthography?) He most sensibly concludes that "it would be unreasonable for him to make a conformity to his own taste, or to the result of his own limited observation, a law to those who may differ from him, and yet agree with perhaps the more common usage.'

It has not unfrequently happened that the present writer has been appealed to respecting the pronunciation of a word. He generally replies that he is accustomed to pronounce it in such or such a way, and has often to add that he has heard others pronounce it differently, but that he has no means of deciding