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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.
The Kerothi language lacked many of the voiced consonants of English and Russian, and, as a result, Tallis' use of B, D, G, J, V, and Z made them come out as P, T, K, CH, F, and S. The English R, as it is pronounced in run or rat, eluded him entirely, and he pronounced it only when he could give it the guttural pronunciation of the German R. The terminal NG always came out as NK. The nasal M and N were a little more drawn out than in English, but they were easily understandable.
It would be absurd to claim that our present English pattern is identical with the old Indo-European one, yet it is impressive to note that even at this late day the English series of initial consonants: The relation between phonetic pattern and individual sound is roughly parallel to that which obtains between the morphologic type of a language and one of its specific morphological features.
All tongues are spoken on my shores, but I have only one language: the winds taught me their vowels the crags and the sands schooled me in my rough or smooth consonants. Few words are mine but I have whispered them and sung them and shouted them to men of all tribes from the time when the first wild wanderer strayed into my awful presence. Have you a grief that gnaws at your heart-strings?
In the expression of fine, delicate, or tender sentiment, all consonants should be lightly touched or should be obscured. Enumeration of the many kinds of carelessness of speech would be to little purpose. Scholarly speech requires a knowledge of correct forms, gained from the dictionary, and vocal care and skill in making these forms clear, smooth, and finished in sound.
This is why the great scientist has endeavoured to speak like other people, preferring, to the harsh consonants of technical phrases which sound "like insults" or have the air of "a magical invocation, which make certain scientific works read like so much gibberish," the "naive and picturesque appellation, the familiar, trivial name, the popular, living term which directly interprets the exact signification of the habits of an insect, or informs us fully of its dominant characteristic, or which, at least, leaves nothing to conjecture."
Thought of by me, the auspicious Saraswati appeared instantly before my eyes, adorned with all the vowels and the consonants and having placed the syllable Om in the van, I then, according to the ordinance, offered unto the goddess the usual Arghya, and dedicated another to Surya, that foremost of all heat-giving deities. Discharging this duty I took my seat, devoted to both those deities.
Thus, when the interruption to the outgoing current takes place by movements of the lips, we have the labial consonants, p, b, f, and v. When the tongue, in relation with the teeth or hard palate, obstructs the air, the dental consonants, d, t, l, and s are produced.
Their very speech, softly slurred and lazy, held a charm for Bert, used to his mother's and his aunts' crisp consonants. He called Nancy "my little southern girl" in his heart, from the hour he met her, and long afterward he told her that he had loved her all that time.
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.
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