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His own language is very Frenchy, perhaps because he translated so many of his books from French. He not only uses words which are almost French, but arranges his sentences in a French manner. He often, too drops the e in the, just as in French the e or a in le and la is dropped before a vowel. This you will often find in old English books. "The abbey" becomes thabbay, "The English" thenglish.
The relations of grammar are thus expressed for the most part by changes of vocalic sound, just as in English the plural of "man" is denoted by a change in the vowel. The verb is but imperfectly developed; it is, in fact, rather a noun than a verb, expressing relation rather than time.
It is highly significant of the nature of the slow spread of a "phonetic law" that there is local vacillation at present in several words. One hears roof, soot, and hoop, for instance, both with the "long" vowel of boot and the "short" of foot.
Both the quality of the tone and the vowel are determined by the combined adjustments of the laryngeal muscles and of the muscles which fix the shape and size of the resonance cavities. The power of the tone is regulated by the force of the breath blast; for each degree of power some special adjustment of the vocal cords is required.
Now she enunciated it with every vowel and consonant correctly and primly uttered; indeed, she repeated it four or five times in proof of complete mastery. "A pretty name. I've often wondered how you came to give it to her," said Lanstron to Minna. "You do like it!" exclaimed Minna with girlish eagerness.
If circuitous phrases and needless expletives distract the attention and diminish the strength of the impression produced, then do surplus articulations do so. A certain effort, though commonly an inappreciable one, must be required to recognize every vowel and consonant.
The pretty, black-eyed Bordelaise there are pretty girls in Bordeaux often seems closer to Madrid than to Paris; even the Bordelais accent has a touch of the Mediterranean, and the crisp words of Paris are broken up and even an extra vowel added now and then, until they ripple like Spanish or Italian.
thus represent, in their vowel and consonantal expressiveness, the past history of countless physical sensations, widely shared by innumerable individuals, and it is to this fact that the "transmission value" of the lines is due. Imitative effects are easily recognized, and need no comment: "Brushed with the hiss of rustling wings" "The mellow ouzel fluting in the elm"
It is true that it was the belief of the Jews in former times that these vowel points were an original part of the language; their scholars made this claim with great confidence, which shows how little reliance is to be placed on Jewish tradition. The evidence is abundant that the Hebrew was originally written without vowels, precisely as stenographers often write in these days.
All these last appellations terminate properly with an a, but this unfortunate vowel, when a final letter, being popularly pronounced like y, we have adapted our spelling to the sound, which produces a complete bathos to all these flights in taste.
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