Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1913-08-16
SL0vEN[Y ENGLISH
Britishers Growing Careless in
Use of Mother Tongue.
FAULTY PRONUNCIATION
Degrading the Unaccented Vowels.
Sounds That Are Being Dis
carded in Speech.
From the Literary Digest

From the Literary Digest.
When an Englishman wishes TO be par
ticularly nice TO an American, IL is tre-
quently observed. he tells him that his
speech is so like the English that he
would never take the younger cousin for
anything but \ real Rritisher. Perhaps
the American sometimes feels flattered
and hopes he has escaped from the pale
OF those who were rehuked by Mr.. Henry
James for the slovenly use OF the mother
tongue. For our good he held up TO emu
lation and imitation the care for sound.
Tor cultivated utterance by which he said
the languages of France. OF Italy. and.
especially OF England. were preserved
and guided. This was a half dozen or
more years ago, and In the meantime
England herself must have backslid. ic
the words of the new laureate are to ba
taken Tor authority. 1t happens that he
issued tract "On the Present State OF
English Pronunciation" just before his
bays were forthcoming In this little
book the London Times finds IL "a shock
to the national self-comp lacency OF Eng
lishmen TO be told, on the best authority.
that they, too, are growing more and
more careless and slovenly in their
speech, and are allowing degradations
and corruptions to creep unchecked into
their language" here are some of the
structures that the Times picks out from
Mr.. Bridges tract:
Blurring vowels.
His first charge is in regard to tho
degradation OF our unaccented novels,
the blurring and running together OF "a
and e and 20 and u into one inde-
terminate sound-the sound Of the last
syllable In danger. He finds this sound
in our upstrest pronunciation of and
the, to-, but must, and representing
1t by the err OF danger lin which. OF
course. the r is not pronounced); he tells
us that we say inter for into 'prer-
nounce' for pronounce ter be or not
ter be- came 'frerm' Oxford ter
London. His next illustration of decay
is the increase Of what is called pal
atalization,' the change of t to 'ch' be-
fore the sound OF u Nature has al
ready become 'neycher' and can hardly
be saved, but don't YOU is changing TO
'dontshew.' Tuesday to 'Cheusdy.' and
tune is well on its way to be pro-
nounced 'chiune.'
And ID also in the same position is now
threatened, as we see in Immediately. and
in the pronunciation of audjins or Origins
for audience, which Mr.. Bridges noted I'm
the speech of a certain professor OF
English. There are other mispronuncia-
tions creeping into our speech which have
been remarked by various observers. ON
board, i'm fact. i'm vain are becoming
Z,
lost before a consonant ifo-s sword and
sawed. Lord and laud arms and aims are
now identical in sound), Is, We are told,
disappearing from the speech of the
y ounger generation before a vowel also
as in .faa away, faw ever. paving with
rain for pouring. II we add to these the
bogus pronuncations produced by unpho-
netic spelling, and the English habit of
swallowing words, there can be little
doubt, for any one who carefully observes
h 10 tfaro hat nf h - frfn nIS
that the speech of the educated classes
In England Is undergoing serious changes
| at the present moment.
That these changes are regrettable
most of us would admit: whether or not
| they can be checked, or must be allow
| ed to work their will unimpeded I'm the
language, is another question. And here
conservatives in language and all those
who wish to exercise a conscious care
over it's beauty and integrity find them
selves opposed by group OF scientific
linguists who regard attempts to pre-
serve the so-called purity of speech AS
pedantic or futile. History has taught
them that the ideal of fixt language is
vain and foolish dream: they have
studied the changes which have affected
our pronunciation in the past, and re-
garding these changes as the result of
Irresistible forces. they believed that We
can no more control the course or
language by our conscious efforts than
we can control the circulation of the
blood or the movements of the planets.
To the stricter sect of this new school
whatever is, Ii right: the words beauty,
decay. degradation and 'vulgarism
have little or no meaning for them. and
from purely scientific point of view.
as one OF them has declared, no diffet-
ence of superiority can be recognized
between the speech heard at the bench
Of a village alehouse and that of the
bench OF bishops
Between, therefore. the purists of Ian
guage, who wish to preserve il from
change, and the scientists, whose great
est pleasure is to catch IL i'm the Very
act of changing, there seems TO be an
irreconcilable difference. Nor can there
be much doubt that this modern point or
view Is coming to be more and more
widely accepted-already teachers have
been known to declare 1t an almost sinful
interference with nature and the free
phonetic development of language to cor
rect the pronunciation of children IN
any way.
Havoc In Language.
The new dogmatism is likely to work
havoc in the language IL 1t goes on un-
checked, and afford announcement to
laziness and slovenliness of speech says
the Times. 1t realizes the delicacies "a
the problem, however.
"It is useless to try to defeat science
with the bludgeons and blunderbusses OF
ignorance and prejudice: our conserva-
tiyes must arm themselves with more
modern weapons. Fortunately MI.
Bridges combines with the sensitiveness
of a man of letters a thorough acquaint-
apco with the methods of the new