Page:Proposals for a Uniform Missionary Alphabet.djvu/11



If the vocal breathing is stopped less abruptly, so as to allow a kind of consonantal sound to continue after the first contact has taken place, the consonant is called media, soft or sonant (g, d, b). The soft consonant does not arrest the sound at once, but mingles with it during a moment of resistance.

If there is only an approach or a very slight contact between the organs, and the vocal breathing is slightly stopped as it reaches the point of contact, the consonants are called half-consonants or semi-vowels. They are sonant like the media, owing to the process of their formation here described (h, l, w).

At the end of words and before a tenuis the semi-vowels become frequently evanescent. The guttural semi-vowel is heard distinctly at the end of the German word "hoch;" but it is lost in the English "high," though still heard in Scotland. The same applies to "nacht" and "night," French "sou" instead of "sol," and "vaut" instead of "valet." In Sanskrit no semi-vowel is tolerated at the end of words or before a tenuis.

If there is no contact at all, and the vocal breathing passes really through, without being checked when it reaches that point of contact where guttural, dental, and labial consonants are formed, we get the three sibilants, or the "winds," as they are more properly called by Hindu grammarians. These are, the pure breathing, spiritus asper and lenis ( and ) for the gutturals, the sharp and soft s for the dentals, and the sharp and soft f for the labials. The sibilants or flatus are distinguished from all other consonants by this, that with them a breathing is really emitted, while the consonants are only so many stops which preclude the emission of vocal sound. A candle applied to the mouth will at once show the difference between the spiritus asper, as in "hard," and the consonantal stops, such as k, g, n, or even the guttural semi-vowel, as heard in "loch." In this respect the sibilant flatus approaches nearer to the vowels than even the semi-vowels.

As we distinguished between tenuis and media in the consonants,