John Hart's Pronunciation of English (1569-1570); By Otto Jespersen

by Otto Jespersen

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1907 Excerpt: ...is doubtfully inclined to take Smith's word 'extremam' as meaning the first element, which is certainly very bold. It must mean the last element, whether this was really long, or whether its narrowness induced Smith to think it long, in the same manner as most English people hear a short narrow French, Scotch or Danish i as long. Possibly Smith did not turn his phrase very happily and meant by his 'saltern' merely what would be more logically expressed if he had said: "the rustics differ from refined people by making both elements long or at least by making the last one long," implying that the first element was long with everybody. This, however, is rather uncertain.2 1 Smith's a need not denote a full back a, but may denote a sound like se in Pres. E. man (long), aB he uses the same symbol for Scotch "ban aut bean, stan aut stean" = bone, stone "cuius sonus est intermedins inter a Romanum & e." This passage is important for the history of the special development of Scotch a; Luick (Untersuchungen p. 127) seems to have known only part of it. Gill has both ai and ai (a = 'long a', probably se-) in many words (day, clay, may, way, lay, pay, maid, praise etc.), and at in others faith, obey, paint, play, plain, etc.). Smith's utterances, thus interpreted, read pretty much like a description of the two pronunciations one may hear in London any day at the beginning of the twentieth century in the very same words, day, way, etc. (and in those with original long a, such as paper, tale), the refined diphthong beginning with e and ending with e or a sound intermediate between e and i, and the vulgar beginning with a much opener sound se or even a and having thus a much greater divergence between the starting point and-the final soun...

54 pages, Paperback

First published July 17, 2009