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The sub-vocals, as ending or final consonants, are the most difficult of all to give their proper value and effect. The student of the voice should study, understand, and practically train the action of these three points or places of articulation; for at these three points, with a few exceptions, all consonantal sounds are made.
No one has done it with v and j treated as consonants; but you and I can do it. Dr. Whewell and I amused ourselves some years ago with attempts. He could not make sense, though he joined words he gave me Phiz, styx, wrong, buck, flame, quiz.
This process of vowel-making is so smooth and open that a succession of legato vowel-sounds can be produced with only one stroke of the glottis, the vowel sounds flowing into each other, or each, seemingly, issuing from the other. Consonants are formed within the upper cavity of resonance, the mouth, some by the tongue alone, some by the combined action of tongue and lips.
"Rats!" said the Sunday, with finality. In the pronunciation of this word the difference between his accent and Edwin's came out clear. The Sunday's accent was less local; there was a hint of a short "e" sound in the "a," and a briskness about the consonants, that Edwin could never have compassed. The Sunday's accent was as carelessly superior as his clothes.
The learning, indeed, lavished on the insoluble question involved in the psychology of the inferior animals is a proof at least of the all-inquisitive, redundant spirit of man. We have almost a literature in itself devoted to endeavours to interpret the language of brutes. Dupont de Nemours has discovered that dogs talk in vowels, using only two consonants, G, Z, when they are angry.
At each one of the four houses we passed on the way I asked, "Who lives there?" I have no recollection of what happened at school those first days, but I remember struggling with the alphabet soon thereafter; the letters were arranged in a column, the vowels first, a, e, i, o, u, and then the consonants.
We cannot prove beyond yea or nay that they are of Celtic origin, but it is extremely probable that they are, for it is among the Celts both of Ireland and of Wales that the harmonizing of vowels and of consonants has been carried to the highest degree of perfection. This learned art was not acquired without long study. The poets had a regular hierarchy.
In it, pure vowels predominate and consonants are in the minority, and even then many of these consonants are vocal, while the hard aspirates of other languages, especially German and English, are unknown to Italian lips. But that which is easier, by no means is always the most artistic. Ease rarely leads to depth.
We use consonants where the bird uses none, as when we give the name cuckoo to a bird whose cry is really "ooh, ooh." Or else we put in the wrong consonants, which is shown by the fact that different nations assign different consonantal sounds to the same bird. We do not even agree on the vowel sounds.
Hamoud-bin-Said suggested that she master first the most difficult consonants "ha," to be pronounced with the force at the back of the palate, "dâd" and "tâ," emphasized by pressing the tongue far back, and the strong guttural "en." These were sounds that had no association with any in English, French, German, or Italian. Lilla was filled with dismay.
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