Page:Transactions NZ Institute Volume 18.djvu/79

Rh the latter is the proposal to render father and farther equally by fadha.

The most provoking thing in the interests of spelling reform is that men of the highest education in England are as unconscious of the defects in scientific orthography as the most ignorant of the people. Until they awake to a sense of the incongruity there is little hope of a reform in the right direction. Thus we hear Ismailia, Port Said, &c, pronounced in the French fashion, which is altogether wrong, either with reference to the diphthong or to the Arabic name. We have Aeden for Aden, Gaol for Point-de-Galle, Aethos for Athos. We may hear Mehemet Ali called Mihimet Aelai; although, strange to say, Pacha is not yet converted into Paechae. We find Lima called Laima; Rio, Raio; and even Panama, Paenaema. Lately I heard a learned archdeacon, who had travelled in the East, talk of Baeaelbec, unconscious that the double a should give an extra breadth to the sound.

At the time of the Crimean war, we used to hear of Bisaika Bay for Besika Bay, Skiuterai for Scutari, &c. On one occasion on returning from Lake Taupo, a well-known New Zealand statesman, an M.A. of Oxon, in a conversation we had together respecting the interior of the island, insisted on giving the French sound to the word Taupo, as if au represented the same sound as awe in English. I objected. He said, "I pronounce it as spelt, and I object to the foreign spelling of the Maori language." I replied, "How then would you spell Taupo in English fashion?" He said "Towpo." My reply was, "That would in English make the word sound Topo, although a Scotchman might probably hit upon the correct pronunciation."

A Saturday Reviewer lately objected to the spelling of Hawaii, preferring Captain Cook's orthography of Owhyhee. There is no accounting for taste; but the Hawaian language has been brought into a phonetic orthography, and Hawaii is the name of the island, and of the kingdom, which Owhyhee as usually pronounced is not; but if we accent Ōwhȳhèe thus, we arrive very nearly at the sound of Hawaii.

The reasons why English orthography is so irregular are sufficiently obvious:—

1. The peculiar sounds given to the vowels in the English alphabet.

2. The adoption of a peculiar mode of pronouncing Latin, and also of Scripture names.

3. The introduction of a number of French words into the language, which are sometimes pronounced in French, in others in English, fashion.

4. The small attention which is paid in England to the study of other foreign languages than French.