EQUIVALENTS The table of elementary sounds presented on page 95, furnishes what seems to be the simplest and best representative character for each of the forty-seven sounds of the language. It also gives as key-words for the several sounds such words as are familiar to everybody who has any knowledge of the English tongue, and the pronunciation is as uniform and unvarying as that of any words that could be selected. It remains to show what other letters and combinations of letters are often employed to represent the same sounds. Such substitutes are appropriately called equivalents. TABLE OF PHONETIC EQUIVALENTS VOWEL EQUIVALENTS a maelstrom, aid, gaol, gauge, lay, aye, re, great, melee, eh, rein, obey, bouquet. ǎ Isaac, plaid, guarantee. ä bazaar, haunt, sergeant, heart, guard. a sauce, law, broad, sought. â Aaron, fair, prayer, there, pear, e'er, heir, eyre. ē Cæsar, eat, feet, seize, people, key, pique, field, œsophagus, quay, Portuguese, turquoise. ĕ any, diæresis, said, says, bread, heifer, leopard, friend, Edipus, bury, guess. ê dearth, sir, guerdon, myrrh. aisle, aye, height, eye, vie, choir, guile, buy, by. I certain, English, beaufin, been, foreign, donkey, carriage, sieve, women, tortoise, busy, build, plaguy, nymph. ō Pharaoh, mauve, beau, yeoman, sew, load, hoe, soul, grow. Ŏ what, lough, knowledge. ô extraordinary, George, board, door, pour. ū beauty, neuter, few, lieu, view, your, cue, suit. ǎ dungeon, gorgeous, cushion, son, does, porpoise, blood, touch, gallows. a worm, cupboard, journey. O caoutchouc, rheum, grew, do, shoe, manœuvre, group, rude, true, fruit. k can, chasm, mock, hough, khan, queen. 1 mill, kiln. m drachm, apothegm, numb, crammed, limn. n gnash, knee, mnemonics, pneumonia, Ann. ng handkerchief, ink. p hiccough, naphtha. r purr. s cede, psalm, schism, science, waltz. sh ocean, chaise, social, pshaw, schist, conscience, mission, sure, position. t asked, ptisan, phthisic, thyme. th_phthisis, Matthew. y onion, hallelujah, surveillance. z suffice, has, raspberry, Xerxes. zh rouge, bijoutry, measure, abscission, transition, azure. It will be noticed that h and the digraphs wh and vocal th have no equivalents. When these sounds are needed these letters are themselves present to represent them. It will also be observed that many of the letters in the combinations marked as equivalents are silent letters, and perfectly useless so far as the pronunciation is concerned. Instead of assisting in determining the pronunciation they often constitute a hindrance. The a in aisle, the e in foreign, the i in plaid, the o in leopard, and the u in build, can scarcely be said to aid in the pronunciation of these words. The b in bdellium, the h in ghost, the ch in drachm, the p in raspberry, are equally useless. In phonetic analysis such letters should be regarded as silent, and not essential to the representation of the sound. A rigid table of equivalents would exclude all such combinations as are composed in part of silent letters, and retain only those words where letters are necessary to represent the equivalent sound, as a in what, e in there, i in pique, o in son, u in busy, ch in chasm, gh in hough, ph in phase. The fuller table, as presented above, may have its uses, however, in showing the inconsistencies of English orthography and the need of an improved mode of spelling. The above table, which shows the various letters and combinations of letters employed to represent the same sound, would hardly be complete without a supplementary table showing the various sounds represented by the same symbol. This table is given on the next two pages, and furnishes a strong argument in favor of the Spelling Reform movement. TABLE SHOWING THE SEVERAL SOUNDS REPRESENTED BY THE SAME SYMBOL a VOWEL SYMBOLS cane, can, car, call, care, cast, comma, any, what. aa Aaron, Isaac, salaam. ae maelstrom, Cæsar, diæresis. ai aid, plaid, fair, said, aisle, captain. ao gaol, Pharaoh, extraordinary. au gauge, launch, sauce, draught, hautboy. ay hay, aye (yes), prayer, says, quay. e mete, met, her, re, sergeant, there, English. ea great, sergeant, heart, bear, heat, bread, dearth. eau beau, beauty, beaufin. ee meet, melee, e'er, been. ei vein, heir, seize, heifer, height, foreign. eo people, leopard, feod, yeomen, George, dungeon, Macleod. o note, not, nor, woman, women, do, son, wor. oa boat, broad, board, cupboard. oe œsophagus, Edipus, goes, does, shoes. oi oil, choir, tortoise, porpoise. oo food, foot, door, poor, blood. ou found, group, sought, soul, pour, your, lough, touch, OW ua journey, could, zouave. now, grow, knowledge, gallows. cube, cub, cur, bury, busy, rude, pull. |