Ueber die Ausſprache der engliſchen Vocale im 13. Jahrhundert und vordem; die Fortentwicklung derſelben im 14., 16., 17. und 18. Jahr- hundert bis zur endgültigen Feſtſtellung ihrer Ausſprache.

Introduction.

A spoken language naturally grows, incorporates various elements, excludes old forms, developes with changing generations, languishes at times, decays like all living things, but proceeds to grow again through its ever-active and irrepressible vitality. How could it be otherwise with the different sensations of the speakers inspired with new thoughts, with their intellectual growth resulting from their contact with other speakers who create some new turn of expression or ally their thoughts with sounds, which are useful modifications of former customs! They will convey or receive new impressions, form some instantaneous innovations which either vanish at once, or become progenitors of future language. Changes in spoken sounds take place from generation to generation, from locality to locality. Rapidl communication of individuals must necessarily produce uniformity of speech. The alterations introduced into a language by emigration or immigration produce little effect on the idioms, yet greatly affect the words in use. Thus the English language has continued to be a Low German dialect notwithstanding all the introductions of Danish, French, Latin and Greck elements; but the words used have undergone great changes both in vowels and consonants. They are found in the various„upland,“ northern, eastern, and western modes of speech. Yet there was also a court dialect in the south, the language of the educated which was somewhat the standard tongue. It had not a pronunciation received all over the country, as in the present day we may recognize one. However uniformity to a certain degree is the aim of all writers; the regulation of spelling comes from the intellectual men.

What was the style of pronunciation and spelling of the great writers Chaucer, Gower and Spenser who gave the language a standard form, a basis on which the whole building reposes for a few centuries? Printing had not begun yet, which led the printers to a feeling of necessity of introducing some degree of uniformity.— The first writers attached value to the letters corresponding to their local pronunciation and used them according to their

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