Page:Proposals for a missionary alphabet; submitted to the Alphabetical Conferences held at the residence of Chevalier Bunsen in January 1854 (IA cu31924100210388).pdf/19

 same changes, and the labials are, therefore, the most constant sounds in all dialects.

Where this variety of pronunciation is only in degree, without affecting the nature and real character of a guttural or dental consonant, we need not take any notice of it. Gutturals from a Semitic throat have a deeper sound than our own, and some grammarians have made a new class for them by calling them pectoral letters. The guttural flatus asper, as heard in the Swiss "ach" is deeper, and as it were more pectoral, than the usual German ch; but this is owing to a peculiarity of the organs of speech; and whatever letter might be chosen to represent this Swiss ch in a phonetic alphabet, it is certain none but a Swiss could ever pronounce it. Sanskrit grammarians sometimes regard h as formed in the chest (urasya), while they distinguish the other gutturals by the name of tongue-root letters (gihvamuliya). These refinements, however, are of no practical use; because, in dialects where the guttural sound is affected and diverted from its purer intonation, we generally find that the pure sound is lost altogether; so that the two hardly ever co-exist in the same language.

But the place of contact of the gutturals may be pushed forward so far as to lie no longer in the throat, but in the palate. This change has taken place in almost all languages. Latin "cantus" is still "canto" in Italian, but in English "chant." In the same manner, the guttural tenuis in the Latin "vocs" (vox) has been softened in Sanskrit into the sound of the English ch, at least where it is followed by certain letters. Thus we have:

"vachmi," I speak, but "vakshi," thou speakest, "vakti," kehe [sic] speaks.

The same applies to the media. Latin "largus" is Italian "largo,"