Page:Transactions NZ Institute Volume 18.djvu/81

Rh "Can't you let it alone;" but if a change is to be made, I would suggest sion. The admixture of French words has been most damaging to the reform of English orthography.

The English mode of pronouncing Scriptural names no doubt has come about from the mode of pronouncing Latin. It is melancholy to see the loss of euphony which is brought about by this plan. I call to mind the archdeacon, with ore rotunda giving out the text from Aisaiah, without the smallest conception that i and ai should have a different sound. When I hear Hebrew words pronounced from the pulpit in English style the effect on my mind is neither sacred nor solemn, but, on the contrary, ludicrous. When I hear Sinai called Sainaeai, the effect passes the ludicrous, and the speaker seems silly. It is surely too bad to burlesque sacred things from the pulpit. There would really be no difficulty in bringing about a correct pronunciation of Scripture names. Forty years ago every one in church responded Aemen. The High Church decided upon Amen, and it has carried the day.

The spelling reformers would retain the present absurd pronunciation of Scripture names and alter the spelling. Thus Isaac is to be changed to Eisak; it should more properly be Aisak. Abraham is to become Aebraham.

If anyone cannot see the loss of force and of cadence which the English pronunciation of Scripture names involves, he must be very deficient in perception.

It is astonishing what small attention is given in England to the study of the Teutonic languages in comparison with that devoted to French. No doubt more attention has of late been given to the study of German, but few know anything of Dutch or Danish, languages closely related to English. I do not remember ever meeting an Englishman who spoke Dutch, except my own father, and he learnt it almost accidentally when commanding a frigate for several years off Java and in the Eastern Archipelago. I would strongly recommend every spelling reformer to read up Dutch and Danish, as well as German, and then he would see the correct lines to go upon.

I think it was Huxley who told the parsons to read up biology before he would take the trouble to argue with them. An English spelling reformer must remain thoroughly incompetent until he has obtained some knowledge of the other Teutonic languages.

Great uncertainty of pronunciation is caused by the use of the letter y, it having in English two different sounds. In the Scandinavian languages it seems to represent the sound of the English e, the y grec, and therefore we get an idea of how Danish names in England such as Whitby, Appleby, &c, should be pronounced. As pronounced in English there is a loss of euphony. Thus if we take the name of an island in the Eastern