Alfred Leach

“ And so it is that Mr Walker’s second-hand rule with regard to WH has retained the implicit allegiance of all his successors who have had pronouncing dictionaries to compile. In the presence of such massive authority, to speak is to be silenced, and to differ is to be crushed. ”

“ The writer has in his mind’s eye a very excellent and scholarly gentleman, one of the high dignitaries of an order of professional speakers, who, by strange anomaly, is a sad non-conformist in the matter of H’s. But—need one add?—such deviations from rule are as rare in their occurrence as the credentials of 12learning and social rank must be exceptional that can obtain forgiveness for them in society; and any man about to choose for himself an eccentricity is not advised to select the uncommon one of erudite H-dropping. ”

“ Hence, it is rather from an association of ideas, than from an effect produced on the organs of hearing, that we derive the pleasure; and the modern H, indicating as it does merely a like modification in the phonation of the several vowels to which it is prefixed, cannot be regarded as having a distinct sound of its own, nor, consequently, as constituting a perfect alliterative rhyme. Do not the mute H’s of the following words give results nearly as satisfactory as the H’s in the above quotation?—
The heir that is honest will honour the hour! ”

“ The “Cockney Problem” has long been a puzzle to all except superficial observers. One may speculate reasonably as to the probable cause of the Londoner dropping his H’s when he ought to aspirate them; but why he persists in placing H’s where they should not be, seems beyond the powers of 14reason to explain. The problem is not solved by saying that an H is prefixed in order to emphasize certain words in a sentence, unless at the same time it can be shown that the speaker is consistent in his manner of using it, and that he is not in the habit of putting H’s before unemphatic words. ”

“ One must endeavour to aspirate with ease, letting the result be light, not forced, though distinct to the ear. Each person should use discretion, and suit the degree of aspiration to the power of his 45voice. The degree suitable to some persons would require an effort on the part of others to imitate. The great thing necessary is once thoroughly to understand the nature of the process, and then to remember where to apply it. The performance will gradually become a result of reflex action and be gone through correctly but unconsciously.
H-dropping must be overcome, and the misuse of H avoided ”

“ There are persons to whom the simple act of aspirating, will never have suggested the idea of difficulty; but there are many others (who in their ordinary speech, put H before half the vowels that do not require it) who are totally at a loss when asked to aspirate a given vowel. They either aspirate unconsciously or not at all. If the reader has never attempted to reform a persistent H-dropper, by teaching him 42the value and nature of the Aspirate, he can form no adequate idea of the extreme difficulty of the task. Some people can learn everything but H’s. ”

“ Grimm—who, by-the-bye, was a bigoted patriot—devoted himself chiefly to an investigation of the Teutonic tongues, and to a study of the German language; but the result of his labours has shown the changes that sounds undergo when a word is being distributed among different peoples. ”

“ He hears the echoes of his island home, difficulties are presented in the way of a regard for H’s and for metre. Under all circumstances, to stop and stutter is inelegant, to repeat a word for the sake of giving it its dropped H, has a ludicrous effect; and to attempt by a powerful effort to aspirate some particular vowel, will often result in a promiscuous scattering of H’s. The only advice to the novice is: select difficult passages, [7] and practice them repeatedly—speak slowly and carefully. ”

“ Where the H is silent, has been difficult to determine; why the H is silent, cannot be determined at all. This much has long been divulged; it is silent in hour, honour, honest, heir, and most of their formatives; the rest is darkness—in the dictionaries. On no point of English pronunciation have authorities more notoriously disagreed than on that of words beginning with H; and if any one wishes to see the fathers of English Orthoepy at loggerheads, or the 47Doctors of Modern English Pronunciation in a muddle, let him glance at the H section of their several dictionaries. ”

“ The prevalent disregard shewn for the rules of aspiration by classes of moderately well-educated persons, may be traced to several causes. Young children do not manifest any fine appreciation of the difference between aspirated and unaspirated vowels, and readily acquire a tendency to neglect or misuse the H, so that, unless correctness of aspiration be made a canon of the nursery, these infantile transgressions are liable to develop into deeply rooted habit. At a great many middle and lower class schools H-dropping is fostered rather than destroyed ”

“ Webster’s verdict was curt and concise: “The pronunciation “yumur” is odiously vulgar!” His words lose their edge in our day, for the “odious” practice prevails with a great number of good speakers. The present writer, if permitted to advance an opinion, would say that to his mind to drop the H “is a custom more honour’d in the breach than the observance;” and that they secede in very good company who aspirate. ”

“ When we see in our pronouncing dictionaries that whip is to be pronounced 72“hwip,” the only belief open to us is that their writers intend two vowel-sounds to be heard in a word containing only one vowel; for they can scarcely mean that the h shall aspirate a consonantal w, nor that a jerked h‘ shall precede the word (thus h‘ + wip) , nor can they desire that the h shall aspirate a whistle—Hʍip. ”

“ Modern poets, it is true, have not unfrequently pressed H into service as an alliterative rhyme, but in so doing they have afforded ample proof of the inefficiency of the modern English Aspirate, when acting in that capacity. One of the best specimens of 30modern alliterative H-rhymes is that in one of Moore’s American poems:—
“And I said, ‘If there’s peace to be found in the world,
A heart that is humble might hope for it here.’” But the alliteration is scarcely appreciable, unless the rendering be accompanied by undue aspiratory efforts. ”

“ In pronouncing the H of HŪ, the markings are scarcely discernable or altogether absent; the breath-stream having become diverted and attenuated by friction against the palate. In Aspirating ha! the breath-marks are very distinct; but still more so in the case of the jerked terminal h‘ of a quick, contemptuous bah‘!
The above experiment is valuable as affording an insight into the phonation of the modern English Aspirate, and as a means by which the new convert from the H-dropping heresy may learn to avoid the opposite error of excessive zeal in the production of his H’s. ”

“ When preparing to obtain a firm basis upon which to found and sustain a plea for the recognition of a standard pronunciation founded on contemporary usage, the writer solicited the advice of Professor Bain, whose friendly assistance was partly conveyed in the following:—
“Where usage conflicts, we must first decide who are to be received as authorities. It seems to me that the stage is better than any other, and the habits of great actors might be referred to. The cultivated society of the metropolis ought to furnish a guide, but we can hardly fix upon a person representing them.” ”

“ Certainly, French words of Latin origin have constantly taken the aspirate when their etymology was in the least obscure. Thus, hearse (which most people do not know is French, and still less do they think it represents the Latin [acc.] , hirpicem [8] ) has always retained its Aspirate. Moreover, it were one thing to be able to prove that a certain pronunciation would be etymologically correct, and another to show that the pronunciation of a language is corrected by etymology. ”

“ In French, the H is never an Aspirate; it merely hardens the vowels in certain words, e.g., haie, hameau, hieroglyphe, &c., and its office is a sinecure in others. When it hardens a vowel, it forbids a liaison with the last consonant of the preceding word. ”

“ Some have believed that aspiration of the vowels is dictated solely by a desire to improve their sounds; others, that a tendency exists to aspirate every initial vowel (as in Hindostanee) , but that exceptions are made wherever they favour fluency and adapt themselves to ease of articulation. Some, again, say that a pervert method of aspirating had an early origin and has undergone a process of gradual development until the acme of depravity has been reached by the present generation. ”

“ A man, moreover, need not drop his H’s though he holloa through a speaking trumpet.
Vocalized breath is that which carries with it a sound produced by vibrations of the vocal chords. These are situate in the larynx, and may be felt vibrating, by placing the hand on the throat while they are in action. ”

“ Etymology.
There are four principal H’s—English, French, Latin, and Greek.
As a rule, pronounce all but the French; and, of these, all but some words of Latin origin.
Examples. English—HILL, HOG, (though this is properly Welsh) , HUNT. The h should never be omitted, being an original aspirate of great strength.
French—herb, hospital, hostler, &c. By rule, 83the h should be silent; but the word herb, in particular, has become so completely Anglicised that to hear an h in it is common. So also habit, haughty, hearse, human; habit and human being counted as Latin. ”

“ A correct pronunciation, when once discarded, is not easily regained—lost H’s have a knack of turning up in wrong places, when 13they return at all. Schoolmasters are not always models of correctness, and a staff of H-dropping ushers is not likely to impress school-boys with a regard for the Aspirate. ”

“ They need the help of a vowel, or of a voiced consonant, in order to express themselves fully. This circumstance, together with the fact of vocalised breath entering into the formation of many consonants, will probably account for the common notion that no consonant can be uttered without a vowel accompaniment. The independence of the sibilant s, offers alone a sufficient refutation of the assumption. It is in Polynesia that savages are found who cannot put two consonants together without a vowel between them. ”

“ But, as far as the writer is aware, the sixteenth century is the earliest that has furnished a record of any words having been habitually written with H’s and pronounced without them. Palsgrave, in 1530, gave honest, honour, habundance, and habitation as having each an otiose H. Salesbury (1547) , in his Welsh Dictionary, says that H is held silent in “French and Englysh, in such wordes as be derived out of Latyne, as these: honest, habitation, humble, habit, honeste, honoure, exhibition, 50and prohibition;” whereas he aspirates it in humour. ”

“ But the h he inserted is there still, and cannot be cast off by any daring iconoclast without an outcry being raised in its behalf by alarmed traditionists: for our orthographical creed is derived from our forefathers, impressed with the accumulated evidences of their quaint blunders, their venerable ignorance, and admirable errors of judgment, all to be assiduously copied by each of us their descendants, as an alternative to being scouted for bad spellers. ”

“ By careful attention to most thoroughly good speakers it will be noticed that an unvocalised W (ʍ) is the phonic rendering of the digraph WH; although the “whistled breath” may be mistaken for an Aspirate by a careless observer, or by one resolute in error.
It is not easy to understand why these facts are not more widely recognised and insisted upon by modern orthoepists and writers on phonological science; and it is very difficult to attribute a cause to the longevity of the erroneous notions that Mr Walker was an early means of disseminating. ”

“ To say the least, the rendering of any of these would require a vocal gymnast to make it effective. But if two vowels are to be employed, the first must needs be aspirated and the second not; so that a phonetic spelling of whip and why would be “hoo ip” and “hoo i”! And, according to Mr Walker and his disciples, this is the correct pronunciation. But the fact remains that even those gentlemen, who in their dictionaries have scrupulously reproduced Mr Walker’s rule, have seldom been known to violate the principles of a correct pronunciation by adhering to it when speaking. ”

“ A reverse permutation occurred in the Sabine fircus (a buck) and the Latin hircus.
The Slavonic tongues are weak or deficient in H’s. In Russian H has the value of N.
Turning to the Teutonic and Keltic stocks, one notices a marked contrast in the fortunes of H. In High German it has retained an important and prominent position; although, generally speaking, it is less conspicuous in Low German tongues. The simple Aspirate, and the other and harsher varieties of H, were universally received into the Keltic languages ”

“ That their juxtaposition does not of itself offend the 28modern ear, may be proven by uttering the words “than have” and “they have,” in which the Aspirate is heard to follow the n and the vowel-sound with equal grace and fluency. There are, moreover, many reasons for entertaining an opinion directly opposed to that expressed by the great lexicographer; and for believing the powers of the English H to have been steadily on the decline since the days of primitive English. In all Aryan languages, H has a tendency to mollify and decay ”

“ Persons who consider themselves experts in the art of aspirating might do well to procure “Harry Hawkins’ H Book; showing how he learned to aspirate his H’s,” and put their aspirative faculties to a crucial test, by reading aloud the story of “The Hairy Ape.” ”