Page:Highways and Byways in Sussex.djvu/435

 a before ct becomes e; as satisfection, for satisfaction.

e before ct becomes a; and affection, effect and neglect are pronounced affaction, effact and neglact.

Double e is pronounced as i in such words as sheep, week, called ship and wick; and the sound of double e follows the same rule in fild for field.

Having pronounced ee as i, the Sussex people in the most impartial manner pronounce i as ee; and thus mice, hive, dive, become meece, heeve, and deeve.

i becomes e in pet for pit, spet for spit, and similar words.

io and oi change places respectively; and violet and violent become voilet and voilent, while boiled and spoiled are bioled and spioled.

o before n is expanded into oa in such words as pony, dont, bone; which are pronounced p[dot above o][dot above a]ny, d[dot above o][dot above a]nt, b[dot above o][dot above a]n.

o before r is pronounced as a; as carn and marning, for corn and morning.

o also becomes a in such words as rad, crass, and crap, for rod, cross, and crop.

ou is elongated into aou in words like hound, pound, and mound; pronounced haound, paound, and maound.

The final ow, as in many other counties, is pronounced er, as foller for fallow.

The peculiarities with regard to the pronunciation of consonants are not so numerous as those of the vowels, but they are very decided, and seem to admit of less variation.

Double t is always pronounced as d; as liddle for little, &c., and the th is invariably d; thus the becomes de; and these, them, theirs—dese, dem, deres.

d in its turn is occasionally changed into th; as in fother for fodder.

The final sp in such words as wasp, clasp, and hasp are reversed to wapse, clapse and hapse.

Words ending in st have the addition of a syllable in the possessive case and the plural, and instead of saying that