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but without its breathiness, will develop the power of producing this intensive vocal effect. Thus:-inhale a full breath, and with all possible force and abruptness, eject the vowel sounds with open mouth from the throat; avoiding, in the most forcible effort, any bending or other action of the head or body. Thus:

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31. A huskiness of voice may be the result of diffidence, of disease, or of over-vocal exertion. With the first and last of these we have to do. The mechanical cause is a relaxation of the vocal ligaments. Rest will generally restore the voice when over-exertion is the cause of its depravity; and the "coup de la glotte" will purify it, and contribute to give confidence when the first is the modifying circumstance. In temporary affections of the voice, warm mucilaginous drinks, and many confectionery preparations will be of service. Dryness of the mouth will be relieved by the "fruit" lozenge, or by a small quantity of powdered nitre placed upon the tongue. Habits of temperance are the best preservative of the voice.

32. The voice is variously modified in quality by the relative arrangement of the organs of the mouth, the soft palate, the tongue, the teeth, and the lips. The various configurations of the vocal channel, and of the oral aperture, by the plastic soft organs, the tongue and lips, give rise to vowel diversity. The contraction of the arch of the fauces, by the enlargement of the tonsils, or by the too close approximation of the root of the tongue to the soft palate, produces a guttural depravity of tone: laxity of the soft palate, causing it to hang from, and uncover, or only partially close, the nares, (the pharyngeal openings of the nostrils) produces a nasal modification: the too close approximation of the jaws, especially the falling back of the lower teeth behind the upper, gives rise to a dental impurity; and the contraction or inequality of the labial aperture-by elevation of the lower lip above the edges of the lower teeth, by depression of the upper lip below the edges of the upper teeth, by contact of the corners of the lips, by pouting, or by opening the mouth

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unequally to one side-produces a labial modification. These labial habits affect not only the quality of the voice, but also many of the vowel and articulate formations.

33. The quality of the voice is said to be gutturally, dentally, or labially depraved, when the approximation of the organs is so close as to produce a degree of guttural, dental, or labial vibration, in addition to the true sonorous vibration of the glottis.

V. PRINCIPLES OF VOWEL FORMATION.

34. The voice, as formed in the glottis, may be said to be destitute of vowel quality. It is moulded into vowel shapes as it flows out of the mouth. The following simple experiment will give a clear idea of the nature of vowel formation.

35. Open the mouth to the greatest possible extentwith the lips naturally drawn back, so that the edges of the teeth are visible--and emit an utterance of voice: it will sound ah! Continue sounding this vowel while you gradually cover the mouth firmly with the hand, laying the fingers of the left hand on the right cheek, and slowly bringing the whole hand across the mouth: the vowel quality of the sound will be changed with every diminution of the oral aperture, progressively becoming uh, aw, oh, oo, as the palm gradually covers the mouth.

36. The apparatus of the mouth is wonderfully calculated to effect the most minute and delicate changes with definiteness and precision. The tongue and the lips are the chief agents of vowel modification. When the tongue is evenly depressed, and the lips are fully spread, the voice has the vowel sound ah; when the labial aperture is contracted to a small central opening-the vowel quality is oo; and when the tongue contracts the oral channel internally-by rising convexly within the arch of the palate, leaving only a small central passage for the voicethe vowel quality is ee. These vowels then, ee, ah, and oo, are the extremes of the natural vowel scale: the closest lingual vowel is ee; the closest labial, oo; and the most open sound, ah.

37. From the mutual independence of the vowel modi

fiers the lips and the tongue,—it will be obvious that their various positions may be assumed either separately or simultaneously. Thus we may put the tongue into the position ee, and the lips into the position oo at the same instant; and we shall produce a labio-lingual vowel, which combines the qualities of these simple labial and and lingual vowels, and is different from both; just as two colours intermixed, such as blue and yellow, produce a third, green,-which combines their effects, and differs from either element of the compound.

The close

labio-lingual vowel, resulting from the simultaneous formation of ee and oo is the German ü—a sound often heard in some of the Irish and American dialects, instead of oo, or u.

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Lingual,

38. There are then three classes of vowels: Labial, and Labio-Lingual. If the mouth be put into the position for the closest sounds in either of these classes, and gradually and evenly opened while the sound is continued, a series of Lingual, Labial, or Labio-Lingual Vowels will be produced, always terminating in the open vowel ah.

39. The following Scheme exhibits all the regular vowels heard in modern European Languages, besides a few dialectic varieties; but the minute diversities of vowel quality are endless, and can as little be estimated as the number of possible shades of colour.*

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* In the Author's system of "Visible Speech" three classes of purely lingual vowels are recognised, as modified by the "Back” the Front" or the (Mixed") Back and Front of the tongue. At each of these three parts of the tongue three distinct vowels are formed, by the "High" "Mid" or · Low" position of the tongue in reference to the palate; and of each of the nine vowels so produced there is a Wide" variety, caused by expansion of the faucal cavity behind the tongue. There are thus eighteen vowels of the lingual class provided with separate symbols. Each of these eighteen vowels yields a "Round" or labialized variety; so that the Alphabet of Visible Speech contains thirty-six simple vowels. The number is extended by diacritic signs to no fewer than One Hundred and Eighty possible shades of vowel quality for which a distinctive notation is given. It is impossible by means of ordinary letters to tabulate the Universal Alphabet with intellegibility; although these vowels are all written by the following six symbols in "Visible Speech”: | † • ~ { ^

[All Visible Speech publications can be obtained from the publisher of this volume.]

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41. The 3rd and 5th vowels of the Labio-Lingual class in the above Table are such common European sounds that an additional illustration with reference to them will not be superfluous. The lips in the position ō, and the tongue in the position ā, produce the French û as heard in bû, une, &c.; and the lips in the position aw, with the tongue in the position ě(1) produce the French cu, or German oë as in feu, Goëthe, &c. If, therefore, the vowel o be sounded, or the vowel aw, the mere advance of the tongue will produce the corresponding labiolingual vowels without any change in the labial position. Thus elevate and depress the tongue quickly, in conjunction with these labial positions, and, without any change in the external arrangement of the mouth, the sound will be alternately,

ō—û—ō—û—ō—û, &c.
aw—eu―aw-eu-aw—eu, &c.

42. The following Table contains a classification of English Vowel sounds in the order of their formation, commencing with that which has the most contracted lingual aperture.

43. ENGLISH Vowel Scheme, AND NUMERICAL NOTATION.

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7-1, AH~ee (isle.) 7-13, AH (owl.)

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44. In order to bring this scheme into practical application, the student must discard letters as names of the sounds, and adopt instead a numerical nomenclature, in accordance with the arrangement in the Table. Thus, he must associate the sound ee with Number 1, and speak of the vowel in the words be, fee, tea, key, ceil, field, people, pique, &c., as uniformly No. 1., independently of the diverse vowel letters which represent the sound. And so with all the other vowels. He has to deal with sounds, not letters.

45. The key words in the Table contain the vowel sounds to which the numbers refer. The student should make himself expert at vocal analysis, so as to be able to pronounce the vowels alone with the exact sound which they receive in the words. He will probably experience some difficulty at first in isolating the short sounds correctly, especially the 2nd and 5th vowels,- without the customary assistance of an articulation to "stop" them. But as there is no particular quantity or duration essential to any vowel, he should make himself able to pronounce all the sounds independently, with both long and short degrees of quantity.

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