Page:Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute - Volume 1 (2nd ed.).djvu/91

Rh 142. Dysporus serrator, Banks.

143. piscator, Linn.

144. Fregata aquila, Linn.



English pronunciation of the vowels is unique. The English language mainly consists of Saxon words, and yet our pronunciation of those words does not accord with that of our Teutonic kinsfolk. Evidently we did not get our vowel sounds from the German. I believe that we derived them from the Celt, and I arrive at this conclusion through the French mode of pronouncing Latin words.

I take the vowels in order, and observe—(1.) That our vowel sound of a in "table" corresponds with the French mode of pronouncing the following words, which I give as specimens merely, e.g.:—

(2.) The English sound of e in "we":—

This head admits of a remarkable illustration from the lately-discovered "Codex Sinaiticus," which gives the original Greek of a Latin translation of a letter of Barnabas, in which Latin version he is made to quote a text of Scripture, and to add the words "ut Filius Dei dicit." It now is seen from the original Greek that the reader was probably a Celt, who said as we do, "ut filios Dei decet," which the copyist, being an Italian, understood to be dicit, and so he altered the word filios to filius.

(3.) Our sound of i in "bite" is a modification of the French corruption