A Critical Pronouncing Dictionary (4th edition)/Rules to Be Observed by the Natives of Scotland
RULES to be observed by the NATIVES of SCOTLAND for attaining a just Pronunciation of English
That pronunciation which distinguishes the inhabitants of Scotland is of a very different kind from that of Ireland, and may be divided into the quantity, quality, and accentuation of the vowels. With respect to quantity, it may be observed, that the Scotch pronounce almost all their accented vowels long. Thus, if I am not mistaken, they would pronounce habit, hay-bit; tepid, tee-pid; sinner, see-ner; conscious, cone-shus; and subject, soob-ject:[1] it is not pretended, however, that every accented vowel is so pronounced, but that such a pronunciation is very general, and particularly of the i. This vowel is short in English pronunciation, where the other vowels are long; thus evasion, adhesion, emotion, confusion, have the a, e, o, and u, long; and in these instances the Scotch would pronounce them like the English: but in vision, decision, etc. where the English pronounce the i short, the Scotch lengthen this letter by pronouncing it like ee, as if the words were written vee-sion, decee-sion, etc. and this peculiarity is universal. The best way, therefore, to correct this, will be to make a collection of the most usual words which have the vowel short, and to pronounce them daily till a habit is formed. See Principles, No. 507.
With respect to the quality of the vowels, it may be observed, that the inhabitants of Scotland are apt to pronounce the a like aw, where the English give it the slender sound: thus Satan is pronounced Sawtan, and fatal, fawtal. It may be remarked too, that the Scotch give this sound to the a preceded by w, according to the general rule, without attending to the exceptions. Principles, No. 88; and thus, instead of making wax, waft, and twang, rhyme with tax, shaft, and hang, they pronounce them so as to rhyme with box, soft, and song. The short e in bed, fed, red, etc. borders too much upon the English sound of a in bad, lad, mad, etc. and the short i in bid, lid, rid, too much on the English sound of e in bed, led, red. To correct this error, it would be useful to collect the long and short sounds of these vowels, and to pronounce the long ones first, and to shorten them by degrees till they are perfectly short; at the same time preserving the radical sound of the vowel in both. Thus the correspondent long sounds to the e in bed, fed, red, are bade, fade, rade; and that of the short i in bid, lid, rid, and bead, lead, reed; and the former of these classes will naturally lead the ear to the true sound of the latter, the only difference lying in the quantity. The short o in not, lodge, got, etc. is apt to slide into the short u, as if the words were written nut, ludge, gut, etc. To rectify this, it should be remembered, that this is o is the short sound of aw, and ought to have the radical sound of the deep a in ball. Thus the radical sound corresponding to the o in not, cot, sot, is found in naught, caught, sought, etc. and these long sounds, like the former, should be abbreviated into the short ones. But what will tend greatly to clear the difficulty will be, to remember that only those words which are collected in the Principles, No. 165, have the o sounded like short u when the accent is upon it: and with respect to u in bull, full, pull, etc. it may be observed, that the pronunciation peculiar to the English is only found in the words enumerated, Principles, No. 174.
In addition to what has been said, it may be observed, that oo in food, mood, moon, soon, etc. which ought always to have a long sound, is generally shortened in Scotland to that middle sound of the u in bull: and it must be remembered, that wool, wood, good, hood, stood, foot, are the only words where this sound of oo ought to take place.
The accentuation, both in Scotland and Ireland, (if by accentuation we mean the stress, and not the kind of stress) is so much the same as that of England, that I cannot recollect many words in which they differ. Indeed, if it were not so, the versification of each country would be different: for as English verse is formed by accent or stress, if this accent or stress were upon different syllables in different countries, what is verse in England would not be verse in Scotland or Ireland; and this sufficiently shows how very indefinitely the word accent is generally used.
Mr. Elphinston, who must be allowed to be a competent judge in this case, tells us, that in Scotland they pronounce silénce, biás, canvás, senténce, triúmph, comfórt, soláce, constrúe, rescúe, respíte, govérn, haráss, ransáck, cancél, with the accent on the last syllable instead of the first. To this list may be added the word menace, which they pronounce as if written menáss; and though they place the accent on the last syllable of canal, like the English, they broaden the a in the last syllable, as if the word were spelt canawl. It may be farther observed, that they place an accent on the comparative adverb as, in the phrases as much, as little, as many, as great, etc. while the English, except in some very particular emphatical cases, lay no stress on this word, but pronounce these phrases like words of two or three syllables without any accent on the first.
But besides the mispronunciation of single words, there is a tone of voice with which these words are accompanied, that distinguishes a native of Ireland or Scotland as much as an improper sound of the letters. This is vulgarly, and, if it does not mean stress only, but the kind of stress, I think, not improperly called the accent.[2] For though there is an asperity in the Irish dialect, and a drawl in the Scotch, independent of the slides or inflexions they make use of, yet it may with confidence be affirmed, that much of the peculiarity which distinguishes these dialects may be reduced to a predominant use of one of these slides. Let any one who has sufficiently studied the speaking voice to distinguish the slides, observe the pronunciation of an Irishman and a Scotchman, who have much of the dialect of their country, and he will find that the former abounds with the falling, and the latter with the rising inflection;[3] and if this is the case, a teacher, if he understands these slides, ought to direct his instruction so as to remedy the imperfection. But as avoiding the wrong, and seizing the right at the same instant, is perhaps too great a task for human powers, I would advise a native of Ireland, who has much of the accent, to pronounce almost all his words, and end all his sentences, with the rising slide; and a Scotchman in the same manner, to use the falling inflexion: this will, in some measure, counteract the natural propensity, and bids fairer for bringing the pupil to that nearly equal mixture of both slides which distinguishes the English speaker, than endeavouring at first to catch the agreeable variety. For this purpose the teacher ought to pronounce all the single words in the lesson with the falling inflexion to a Scotchman, and with the rising to an Irishman; and should frequently give the pauses in a sentence the same inflexions to each of these pupils, where he would vary them to a native of England. But while the human voice remains unstudied, there is little expectation that this distinction of the slides should be applied to these useful purposes.
Besides a peculiarity of inflexion, which I take to be a falling circumflex, directly opposite to that of the Scotch, the Welsh pronounce the sharp consonants and aspirations instead of the flat. (See Principles, No. 29, 41.) Thus for big they say pick; for blood, ploot; and for good, coot. Instead of virtue and vice, they say firtue and fice; instead of zeal and praise, they say seal and prace; instead of these and those, they say thece and thoce; and instead of azure and osier, they say aysher and osher; and for jail, chail. Thus there are nine distinct consonant sounds which, to the Welsh, are entirely useless. To speak with propriety, therefore, the Welsh ought for sometime to pronounce the flat consonants and aspirations only; that is, they ought not only to pronounce them where the letters require the flat sound, but even where they require the sharp sound; this will be the best way to acquire a habit; and when this is once done, a distinction will be easily made, and a just pronunciation more readily acquired.
There is scarcely any part of England, remote from the capital, where a different system of pronunciation does not prevail. As in Wales they pronounce the sharp consonants for the flat, so in Somersetshire they pronounce many of the flat instead of the sharp: thus for Somersetshire, they say Zomersetshire; for father, vather; for think, think; and for sure, zhure.[4]
There are dialects peculiar to Cornwall, Lancashire, Yorkshire, and every distant county in England; but as a consideration of these would lead to a detail too minute for the present occasion, I shall conclude these remarks with a few observations on the peculiarities of my countrymen, the Cocknies; who, as they are the models of pronunciation to the distant provinces, ought to be the more scrupulously correct.
First Fault of the Londoners.
Pronouncing s indistinctly after st.
The letter s after st, from the very difficulty of its pronunciation, is often sounded inarticulately. The inhabitants of London, of the lower order, cut the knot, and pronounce it in a distinct syllable, as if e were before it, but this is to be avoided as the greatest blemish in speaking: the three last letters in posts, fists, mists, etc. must all be distinctly heard in one syllable, and without permitting the letters to coalesce. For the acquiring of this sound, it will be proper to select nouns that end in st, or ste; to form them into plurals, and pronounce them forcibly and distinctly every day. The same may be observed of the third person of verbs ending in sts or stes, as persists, wastes, hastes, etc.
Second Fault.
Pronouncing w for v, and inversely.
The pronunciation of v for w, and more frequently of w for v, among the inhabitants of London, and those not always of the lower order, is a blemish of the first magnitude. The difficulty of remedying this defect is the greater, as the cure of one of these mistakes has a tendency to promote the other.
Thus, if you are very careful to make a pupil pronounce veal and vinegar, not as if written weal and winegar, you will find him very apt to pronounce wine and wind, as if written vine and vind. The only method of rectifying this habit seems to be this: Let the pupil select from a Dictionary, not only all the words that begin with v, but as many as he can of those that have this letter in any other part. Let him be told to bite his under lip while he is sounding the v in those words, and to practise this every day till he pronounces the v properly at first sight: then, and not till then, let him pursue the same method with the w; which he must be directed to pronounce by a pouting out of the lips without suffering them to touch the teeth. Thus by giving all the attention to only one of these letters at a time, and fixing by habit the true sound of that, we shall at last find both of them reduced to their proper pronunciation, in a shorter time than by endeavouring to rectify them both at once.
Third Fault.
Not sounding h after w.
The aspirate h is often sunk, particularly in the capital, where we do not find the least distinction of sound between while and wile, whet, and wet, where, and were, etc. The best method to rectify this, is to collect all the words of this description from a Dictionary, and write them down; and, instead of the wh, to begin them with hoo in a distinct syllable, and so to pronounce them. Thus let while be written and sounded hoo-ile; whet, hoo-et; where, hoo-are; whip, hoo-ip, etc. This is no more, as Dr. Lowth observes, than placing the aspirate in its true position before the w, as it is in the Saxon, which the words come from; where we may observe, that though we have altered the orthography of our ancestors, we have still preserved their pronunciation.
Fourth Fault.
Not sounding h where it ought to be sounded, and inversely.
A still worse habit than the last prevails, chiefly among the people of London, that of sinking the h at the beginning of words where it ought to be sounded, and of sounding it, either where it is not seen, or where it ought to be sunk. Thus we not unfrequently hear, especially among children, heart pronounced art, and arm, harm. This is a vice perfectly similar to that of pronouncing the v for the w, and the w for the v, and requires a similar method to correct it.
As there are so very few words in the language where the initial h is sunk, we may select these from the rest, and, without setting the pupil right when he mispronounces these, or when he prefixes h improperly to other words, we may make him pronounce all the words where h is sounded, till he has almost forgot there are any words pronounced otherwise: then he may go over those words to which he improperly prefixes the h, and those where the h is seen but not sounded, without any danger of an interchange. As these latter words are but few, I shall subjoin a catalogue of them for the use of the learner: Heir, heiress, herb, herbage, honest, honesty, honestly, honour, honourable, honourably, hospital, hostler, hour, hourly, humble, humbly, humbles, humour, humourist, humourous, humorously, humoursome: where we may observe, that humour and its compounds not only sink the h, but sound the u like the pronoun you, or the noun yew, as if written yewmour, yewmorous, etc.
Thus I have endeavoured to correct some of the more glaring errors of my countrymen, who, with all their faults, are still upon the whole the best pronouncers of the English language: for though the pronunciation of London is certainly erroneous in many words, yet, upon being compared with that of any other place, it is undoubtedly the best; that is, not only the best by courtesy, and because it happens to be the pronunciation of the capital, but the best by a better title - that of being more generally received; or, in other words, though the people of London are erroneous in the pronunciation of many words, the inhabitants of every other place are erroneous in many more. Nay, harsh as the sentence may seem, those at a considerable distance from the capital do not only mispronounce many words taken separately, but they scarcely pronounce, with purity, a single word, syllable, or letter. Thus, if the short sound of the letter u in trunk, sunk, etc. differ from the sound of that letter in the northern parts of England, where they sound it like the u in bull, and nearly as if the words were written troonk, soonk, etc. it necessarily follows that every word where the second sound of that letter occurs must by those provincials be mispronounced.
But though the inhabitants of London have this manifest advantage over all the other inhabitants of the island, they have the disadvantage of being more disgraced by their peculiarities than any other people. The grand difference between the metropolis and the provinces is, that people of education in London are generally free from the vices of the vulgar; but the best educated people in the provinces, if constantly resident there, are sure to be strongly tinctured with the dialect of the country in which they live. Hence it is, that the vulgar pronunciation of London, though not half so erroneous as that of Scotland, Ireland, or any of the provinces, is, to a person of correct taste, a thousand times more offensive and disgusting.
- ↑ That this is the general mode of pronouncing these words in Scotland, is indisputable: and it is highly probable that the Scotch have preserved the old English pronunciation, from which the English themselves have insensibly departed. Dr. Hicks observed long ago, that the Scotch Saxonised in their language much more than the English; and it is scarcely to be doubted that a situation nearer to the Continent, and a greater commercial intercourse with other nations, mode the English admit of numberless changes which never extended to Scotland. About the reign of Queen Elizabeth, when the Greek and Latin languages were cultivated, and the pedantry of showing an acquaintance with them became fashionable, it is not improbable that an alteration in the quantity of many words took place; for as in Latin almost every vowel before a single consonant is short, so in English almost every vowel in the same situation was supposed to be long, or our ancestors would not have doubled the consonant in the participles of verbs, to prevent the preceding vowel from lengthening. But when once this affectation of Latinity was adopted, it is no wonder it should extend beyond its principles, and shorten several vowels in English, because they were short in the original Latin; and in this manner, perhaps, might the diversity between the quantity of the English and the Scotch pronunciation arise. (542) (543) See Drama.
- ↑ See this more fully exemplified in Elements of Elocution, vol. II. page 13.
- ↑ Or rather the rising circumflex. For an explanation of this inflexion, see Rhetorical Grammar, third edition, page 79.
- ↑ See the word Change.