English alphabet

“ Now, to proceed with Orthography, we may remark, that
A letter is the least part of a word.
Of a comic letter an instance has already been given.
Dr. Johnson’s letter to Lord Chesterfield is a capital letter.
The letters of the Alphabet are the representatives of articulate sounds.
The Alphabet is a Republic of Letters.
There are many things in this world erroneously as well as vulgarly compared to “bricks.” In the case of the letters of the Alphabet, however, the comparison is just; they constitute the fabric of a language, and grammar is the mortar. ”

“ For what the writer considers the theoretically best mode of arranging the letters, he begs to refer the reader to the "Alphabet of Nature," Part 1, in which the subject is entered into at great length. The English Alphabet will, however, in practice, be kept distinct, and arranged as in the first Table, and the Phonotypic Journal for June, 1845; while the Additional Symbols required for the extension of Phonotypy to foreign languages, will form a separate Table, as in the July Journal for the same year. COMPLETE PHONOTYPIC ALPHABET.
G. German; F. French; I. Italian; P. Portuguese ”

“ These defects, it may be said, once for all, the English alphabet shares with those of the rest of the world; although, with the doubtful exception of the French, it possesses them in a higher degree than any.
With few, if any, exceptions, all the modes of writing in the world originate, directly or indirectly, from the Phœnician, Hebrew, or Semitic alphabet. This is easily accounted for when we call to mind,—1. The fact that the Greek, the Latin, and the Arabian alphabets, are all founded upon this ”

“ Wilberforce, with all a sister's care, had rocked in his baby-cradle,—whom, but for my wife's long and short notes, I should have clumsily abused among the other statesmen of the day.
You will see, in an instant, awakening Reader, that it is not the business simply of "operators" in telegraphic dens to know this Morse alphabet, but your business, and that of every man and woman. If our school committees understood the times, it would be taught, even before phonography or physiology, at school. I believe both these sciences now precede the old English alphabet. ”

“ In changing the characters of an alphabet, as well as in expressing the sounds of one language by letters of an other, some difficulty will often arise from the want of a perfect correspondence between the true sounds of letters in both. Altho there is, and must be, a great uniformity in the articulate sounds of all men, yet there are also differences peculiar to each nation, which others have not proper characters to express. ”

“ As you are aware, E is the most common letter in the English alphabet, and it predominates to so marked an extent that even in a short sentence one would expect to find it most often. ”

“ Now, as it rarely happens that any two languages have precisely the same elementary articulate sounds, so it rarely happens that an alphabet can be transplanted from one tongue to another, and be found, at once, to coincide. ”

“ For not only have the effective letters of our alphabet a variety of meanings, but they are used in such a capricious manner, so utterly disregardful of all analogy—all expectation, that it is, as we have seen, totally impossible for even a practised English reader to guess, with any approach to certainty, what may be meant for the pronunciation of any word which he has not previously seen, or how to write any word which he has only heard, and never seen written. ”

“ No system of symbols has been adopted which represent with absolute accuracy and adequacy a spoken language at all periods of its history. It is a matter of extreme doubt whether any living language is now, or ever has been, represented by its alphabet with absolute accuracy and precision. ”

“ He says, “English is now the most barbarously spelled of any cultivated tongue in Christendom. We are weltering in an orthographic chaos in which a multitude of signs are represented by the same sound and a multitude of sounds by the same sign.” [7] There is no doubt that our spelling is exceedingly unphonetic and unscientific. In our alphabet are only twenty-six characters to represent the multiplicity of sounds which exist in the English language. The utter inadequacy of our imperfect alphabet makes its strongest appeal—albeit mute—in its vowel notation. ”

“ Plates used by permission of Ely & Walker Dry Goods Co., St. Louis.
[28]
“SPECIAL” ALPHABET
This alphabet is a Variation of the Roman and Old English combined. There is always a demand for something neat, and attractive, and not too difficult or “fancy” to be easily made and easily read.
The same alphabet used week after week becomes monotonous, and students will find the “special” alphabet shown on the following page a very interesting one.
The capitals are quite easy, and follow somewhat after the style of the plain, single stroke Roman, for the pen and brush, shown previously. ”

“ THE STORY OF THE ALPHABET CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY
"What is ever seen is never seen," and it may be questioned if one in ten thousand of the readers of to-day ever pauses to ask what is the history of the conventional signs called the Alphabet, which, in their varying changes of position, make up the symbols of the hundred thousand words and more contained in a comprehensive dictionary of the English tongue. ”

“ The English alphabet must be pre-eminent in an English catalogue.
The rule that M', Mc, St., etc., should be arranged as if spelt Mac, Saint, etc., stands on a different basis from the above, and the reason is, as stated by Mr. Cutter (rule 173) , "because they are so pronounced." When we see St., we at once say Saint, and therefore look under Sa.
The Index Society rule enters fully into this point, and explains what is a difficulty to some: "6. Proper names with the prefix St., as St. Albans, St. John, to be arranged in the alphabet as if written in [201] full, Saint. ”

“ PART I. ORTHOGRAPHY. ORTHOGRAPHY treats of letters, syllables, separate words, and spelling.
CHAPTER I.—OF LETTERS. A Letter is an alphabetic character, which commonly represents some elementary sound of the human voice, some element of speech.
An elementary sound of the human voice, or an element of speech, is one of the simple sounds which compose a spoken language. The sound of a letter is commonly called its power: when any letter of a word is not sounded, it is said to be silent or mute. The letters in the English alphabet, are twenty-six ”

“ CARTON’S SYSTEM. Also arbitrary, though following somewhat the form of the lower-case alphabet.
6. ALSTON’S SYSTEM. This great improvement consisted in the rejection of all arbitrary symbols, and the adoption of the plain Roman alphabet of capitals. In addition to the simplicity both to the teacher and the scholar, its adaptability to typography was obvious. Instead of soldering the wire outlines on to tin, the letters were now cut and cast by the ordinary process of typefounding. ”

“ A knowledge of about three dozen different elementary sounds is implied in the faculty of speech. The power of producing these sounds with distinctness, and of adapting them to the purposes for which language is used, constitutes perfection of utterance. Had we a perfect alphabet, consisting of one symbol, and only one, for each elementary sound; and a perfect method of spelling, freed from silent letters, and precisely adjusted to the most correct pronunciation of words; the process of learning to read would doubtless be greatly facilitated. ”

“ Letters are divided into Vowels and Consonants.
The vowels are capable of being perfectly uttered by themselves. They are, as it were, independent members of the Alphabet, and like independent members elsewhere, form a small minority. The vowels are a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes w and y.
An I. O. U. is a more pleasant thing to have, than it is to give.
A blow in the stomach is very likely to W up.
W is a consonant when it begins a word, as "Wicked
Will Wiggins whacked his wife with a whip but in every other place it is a vowel, as crawling, drawling, sawney, screwing, Jew. ”

“ This is as incorrect as to call a language an alphabetic language. To say, however, the Runic stage of a language is neither inaccurate nor inconvenient. The Runic alphabet, whether borrowed or invented by the early Goths, is of greater antiquity {210}than either the oldest Teutonic or the Mœso-Gothic alphabets. The forms, names, and order of the letters may be seen in Hickes' Thesaurus, in Olai Wormii Literatura Runica, in Rask's Icelandic Grammar, and in W. Grimm's Deutsche Runer. ”

“ That the Bengal letter is very difficult to be imitated in steel will readily be allowed by every person who shall examine the intricacies of the strokes, the unequal length and size of the characters, and the variety of their positions and combinations. It was no easy task to procure a writer accurate enough to prepare an alphabet of a similar and proportionate body throughout, with that symmetrical exactness which is necessary to the regularity and neatness of a fount. ”

“ Vowels.
What letter in the alphabet is necessary to make a shoe? The last.
What word of six letters admits of five successive elisions, leaving at each abbreviation a well-known word? Brandy—brand—bran—ran—an—a.
Name two English words, one of which, being of one syllable only, shall contain more letters than the other of five syllables? Strength—Ideality.
Why is a glass-blower the most likely person to set the alphabet off at a gallop? Because he can make a D-canter. ”

“ We present the reader with a form of Alphabet composed in humble imitation of that famous one, which, while appreciable by the dullest taste, and level to the meanest capacity, is nevertheless that by which the greatest minds have been agreeably inducted into knowledge. ”

“ Ce and ci have sometimes the sound of sh; as in ocean, social. Ch commonly represents the compound sound of tsh; as in church.
G, as well as C, has different sounds before different vowels. G is always hard, or guttural, before a, o, and u; and generally soft, like j, before e, i, or y: thus the syllables, ga, ge, gi, go, gu, gy, are pronounced ga, je, ji, go, gu, jy.
The possible combinations and mutations of the twenty-six letters of our alphabet, are many millions of millions. But those clusters which are unpronounceable, are useless. ”

“ PREFACE If this little book does not supply a want, it fills, however imperfectly, a gap; for the only work in the English language on the subject—Canon Isaac Taylor's "History of the Alphabet"—is necessarily charged with a mass of technical detail which is stiff reading even for the student of graphiology. Moreover, invaluable and indispensable as is that work, it furnishes only a meagre account of those primitive stages of the art of writing, knowledge of which is essential for tracing the development of that art, so that its place in the general evolution of human inventions is made clear. ”

“ The most unconcerned observer cannot but perceive that there are certain differences in the sounds, as well as in the shapes, of the letters; and yet under what heads they ought severally to be classed, or how many of them will fall under some particular name, it may occasionally puzzle a philosopher to tell. The student must consider what is proposed or asked, use his own senses, and judge for himself. With our lower-case alphabet before him, he can tell by his own eye, which are the long letters, and which the short ones ”

“ American English is Comic English in a "pretty particular considerable tarnation" degree.
English Grammar is divided into four parts-Orthography, Etymology, Syntax, and Prosody; and as these are points that a good grammarian always stands upon, he, particularly when a pedant, and consequently somewhat flat, may very properly be compared to a table.
PART I. ORTHOGRAPHY.
CHAPTER I. OF THE NATURE OF THE LETTERS, AND OF A COMIC ALPHABET. Orthography is like a schoolmaster, or instructor of youth. It teaches us the nature and powers of letters and the right method of spelling words. ”

“ Although, theoretically, the Chinaman has to make an enormous number of characters before he can write his own language, so that, at the age of twenty-five, a diligent student has barely acquired the same amount of facility in reading and writing which is usually attained by an English child—using the twenty-six characters of his alphabet—at the age of ten ”

“ While speech and mode of writing are distinct and independent, the one of the other, the influence of language structure in the evolution of graphic systems is conspicuous. Thus a sentence of English speech might be expressed by Chinese characters or Egyptian hieroglyphics. In the Tel Armana tablets, more than one language appears in the cuneiform. We have seen how the so called Hittite characters were found on occasion yielding Greek words, and the use of the Roman alphabet for French, German, Italian and other languages, are every day examples. ”

“ Again, we find KC, alphabets 4-5, occurring six times, and with both letters already spotted as consonants — another probable th — followed three times by G, alphabet 1, already likely to represent e, and twice by B, which could thus represent a (the famous English the, tha) . And similarly we might continue with a long demonstration.
Returning, now, to our mechanical operations: Dealing, as we are, with five different alphabets, it becomes imperative that we keep track of substitutes ”