LESSON III.

WRITING BY SOUND.

In the words came, cat, call, care, calf, no two of the sounds denoted by the letter a are just alike. Each of the different sounds of a letter is sometimes called a power of that letter. In our irregular way of spelling English words, ey in they and eigh in sleigh denote the sound which a has in came. The sound of a in call is represented in caught by augh, in pawn by aw, by au in autumn, and by o in nor. We not only find that seventeen of our letters represent each from two to nine different sounds, but that nearly every sound in the language is represented in two or more ways.

In writing the following exercises, you are asked to use one character for each sound, and always to denote that sound by the same character. This is Phonic writing,-writing in accordance with the sounds.

There are forty-four sounds to be represented; and, as our alphabet contains only twenty-six letters, several new characters must be supplied or old ones must be changed. The latter plan is followed in the Phonic Chart (p. 11).

C, q, and x do not appear in the Chart. We have other ways of representing their powers, as in sacrifice (sakrifize), cent (sent), conquer (ker), fox (foks), exact (egzakt). What is the power of c, of q, and of x, as they are used in acid, excellence, conquer, axle, xebec, exert ?

LESSON IV.

THE NAME VOWELS,”—A, E, I, 0, And u.

Mate, mete, mite, mote, mute. In each of these words, except the last, the sound of the second letter is precisely the same as the name of that letter; and even in mute, the real sound of the second letter is heard as a part of its name. Hence these five vowels have been called name vowels. They are also known as "long a," "long e," "long i," "long o," and "long u." A short horizontal mark, called a macron, is placed over a to denote "long a," over e to denote "long e," and so on.

In

Phonic writing, the words tide and break are represented thus, tid, brāk.

Utter ā, ē, ī, ò; ā, trād; ā, blāz; é, hēp; ē, swēt; ē, hēr; ō, mōn; ī, īz; ē, sēd; ē, belev; o, hōd. Is there any difference in sound between mote and moat? How many sounds in each word?

Represent by well-made written characters, all the sounds in the words breeze, ream, least, hole, stone, five, say, plain, sleigh, high, might, obey, known, height, race (s).

"ITALIAN A,'

99.66

LESSON V.

66

BROAD 0," AND LONG DOUBLE O." Pronounce ah. To sound this fine vowel well, the passage of the mouth must be enlarged from side to side. Do not fear to say ah, papa; ah, farm; ah, large; ah, half; ah, calm; ah, balm. This is "Italian a." Represent it by ä.

A sound almost as fine as ä is heard in the words awe, ought, pawn, nor. Call this "broad o," and denote it by ô.

The sound of o in prove and of oo in moon is called "long double o." Denote it by o. When sounding o, do not drop the upper lip, but thrust it outward and upward. Pronounce moose, o: o, school; o, prove, moon, soot, root.

Name two words containing the sound ä; two containing ô. What is the name of the vowel in laugh? Give the sound. Represent it. Name, utter, and represent the vowel heard in each of the following words: saw, harm, lief, height, freight, born, marsh.

Utter a, a, e, ô, ô, o; ap, oz, sfer, bột, kol, kôl, kẽ, läf sọn, rõ, rổ, rọ.

LESSON VI.

TILDE E AND LONG FLAT A.”

A vowel sound which is oftener met with, perhaps, than any other, is heard before r in her, fir, murmur, word, myrrh. In how many different ways do you find this sound represented here?

In practicing this vowel, as heard in the words earth, urn, notice that the sound comes through a mouth well opened; also that the tongue must not change its position while you are uttering the tone.

Represent this long vowel by ĕ. The mark over the e is called a til-de: we will call the vowel “tilde e.”

You would write player plaer, and prayer, one who prays, prāĕr; but prayer, a petition, has a different sound of a. This is "long flat a," and denoted by â. This sound is quite different from a. We must distinguish between layer and lair, stayer and stare, payer and pair, weigher and wear. There is no difference in sound between any two of the following words: air, ere, e'er (the contraction of ever), and heir. Which sound is made by means of a more open tube, à or â?

Represent scarce, warm, fold, talk, dare, myrrh, least, word, notes, cur, oats, boot, lose (z), daughter, lair.

LESSON VII.

THE COMMON SHORT VOWELS.

Pronounce at, et, it, ot, ut. Now do it forcibly and without looking on the book. Do this again, omitting the consonant. Practice until you can do it perfectly. You have now uttered five short vowels, or, more properly, explosive vowels. These are commonly marked in dictionaries thus, ă, ě, Ĭ, ŏ, ŭ. We will omit the curve, or breve, and let a (unmarked) represent the vowel in at; e, that in ell; i, that in it; o, that in on; u, that in up. Remember that a, e, i, o, or u, left unmarked in our Phonic writing, represents an abrupt vowel.

Pronounce dust, top, tub, pit, vat, debt, sot; also the following, in which the vowel is short, and perhaps not what you may at first think it to be: said, saith, dost, was, watch, wan, won, month, women, many, quarry, bury, busy, yacht, been, English, halibut.

Represent lock [Are both c and k needed to represent the sounds of this word ?], arrow (one r), market, railroad, flood, horse, artist, omit, arid, acid, wan, won, busy, been, love.

LESSON VIII.

ACCENT." SHORT ITALIAN A AT THE BEGINNING OR END OF A WORD.

The

A Syllable is either a word, or such a part of a word, as is spoken with a single effort or impulse of voice. word rail is a syllable, because, in speaking it, the voice makes but one spring; so is the word road. What is a word of one syllable called? In pronouncing the word railroad, how many springs or efforts does the voice make? What is a dissyllable? a polysyllable?

Are all the syllables of the word November spoken with equal loudness? Which syllable of the word neglect is spoken more loudly than the other? which syllable of appetite?

The greater force given to one syllable of a word is called Accent.

A small character used to mark the accent'ed syllable is also called an accent. Pronounce moment, momentum, satisfy, satisfaction, advertise', advertisement, horizon, ex'quisite, inqui'ry, perfect, per'fected.

A as a word, also a unaccent'ed and ending a word or forming an unaccented syllable at the beginning of a word, has the sound of ah, but shorter. Thus, A-m-e-ri-c-a should be pronounced Ah-mer-i-cah-the first sound and the last very light. Say a(h)void, not avoid, Cuba(h), not Cuba; a(h) man, not a man. This sound, called "short Italian a," denote by ȧ.

Let the words of the following list be pronounced until final å (ah) is no longer heard as "short e,' ""short i," or "long a." Say pōlkå, not põlkeh; sōdå, not sōdy; and Iowa, not Ioway.

Noah, Asa, Ira, Micah, Augusta, Celia, Hannah, Clara, Anna, Cora, Cordelia, Deborah, Eliza, Julia, Laura, Martha, arnica, era, lava, veranda, mica, algebra, America, Africa, Asia (shi, not zhi), Indiana, Minnesota, Georgia, Canada, Arabia, Louisiana.

LESSON IX.

66 SHORT ITALIAN A "ACCENT'ED.

Some monosyllables and accented syllables also contain a. Speak ah explosively, as in Hannah [It is best to do it with the falling slide], before each of the following words, and utter the same sound within the word: ah, task; ah, last; ah, bath; ah, ant [A-u-n-t has "long Italian a"].

Read the following sentence: å picture of å man and å dog will please a child.

The word the, when properly spoken, before a vowel receives but little force on the vowel è; perhaps the sound is quite as near to "short i." Pronounce, "The ape ate the apple." When the is followed by a consonant, a faint sound of "tilde e" takes the place of "short i," thus, "The boys were all the happier for the task."

The following list contains the most common words in which "short Italian a" is used with force or accent. Drill on the element until you can utter it easily.

Advance, advantage, after, alas, ant, ask, asp, bask, basket, blast, branch, brass, cask, cast, chaff, chance, clasp, class, contrast, dance, draft, fast, gasp, ghastly, glance, glass, graft, grass, lance, last, mass, pass, past, pastor, pastime, plaster, prance, quaff, repast, shaft, slant, staff, task, vast, waft.

LESSON X.

66 SHORT DOUBLE O."

Pronounce full, pulpit, good, foot, put. You notice quite a difference between the vowels in hoot and hood, stoop and stood, woof and wood. This abrupt sound of oo, as in good (frequently represented also by u, as in pull), we will call "short double o," but represent it by u. Pronounce hud, hu, ụ; ụ, gụ, gụd.

You should utter o in pronouncing stoop [See Lesson V., paragraph third], two, school, hoop, room, roof, root, broom, soon, food, truth, brute; but u in book, hook, hood, should, took, wolf, put.

Utter abruptly, a, e, i, o, u, à, u. All these are explo