Abstract
THIS new edition of Miss Soames's work, which was designed by the authoress to provide a convenient method of teaching the pronunciation of the English, French and German languages, will no doubt prove useful to those teachers who believe in the advisability of teach ing pronunciation by means of Pitmanese. The book is in no sense a scientific treatise on phonetics; the portion which deals with the production of the sounds of the three languages treated of is simply a very good and useful exposition of the obvious: the main point of the book is the elaboration for teaching purposes of a phonetic alphabet which in many respects falls far short of our ideal of what a phonetic alphabet should be, if such a thing need be constructed for teaching or any other purpose at all, except for the use of scientific students of linguistic phenomena. E.g. the authoress uses “a” to express the indeterminate vowel-sound: now nobody ever pronounced the as “dha”; when it is not fully pro nounced “dhî,” it is pronounced as a German would pronounce “dhö”: to write it “dha” is most misleading. Also, the final -er in English absolutely = the German ö; crozier is pronounced “krōzyö,” though Miss Soames would tell us to pronounce it “krōzhar.” She writes gardener as “gâdnar”: now if we pronounce a true r in gardener at all, it is most certainly in the first syllable (where it is usually sounded as a faint guttural, a sort of feeble ayin), and not at the end of the word: gârdnö or gâ'dnö. Generally speaking, Miss Soames connives at the tendency of modern English to weaken the r, and represents it as being far weaker than it really is: in the same way the tendency to lose the distinction between witch and which is in no way combated by Miss Soames. She spells, most inconsistently, “when,” “which,” instead of “hwen,” “hwich” (hwic), the proper phonetic spelling. Again, to teach a child to pronounce Sassenach as “Sasinæk” (Pt. i. p. 109), and Lochinvar as “Lokinvar” (Pt. ii. p. 64), is an extremely slipshod proceeding, if it be not a mere solecism on the part of the authoress.
Introduction to English, French, and German Phonetics, with Reading Lessons and Exercises.
By Laura Soames Wilhelm Vietor Pp. xxvii + 178 + 89. (London: Swan Sonnenschein and Co., Ltd., 1899.)
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Introduction to English, French, and German Phonetics, with Reading Lessons and Exercises . Nature 62, 220 (1900). https://doi.org/10.1038/062220a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/062220a0