Letters were originally designed to represent sounds, and the natural theory was to have a letter for each elementary sound used in the language. The letters of the Greek alphabet represent the sounds of that language very accurately, and the Roman letters were originally more accurate representatives of sound than they are at present. The English language contains sounds that the Latin language did not; hence, when we attempt to use the same old alphabet that served a tolerable purpose two thousand years ago, in writing an entirely different language, we find it fit as awkwardly as the clothes of a boy of five years would fit the man of twenty-five.

The writer of a phonetic, system has, however, a sure and easy basis to build up his system of orthography upon. He has only to consider carefully the true pronunciation of the word to be written, and then, having learned each alphabetic sign as the representative of a sound, give each sound its true sign. The perfection of the

Theory requires that every sign shall represent the same bound at all times, and that no sound be without a letter to represent it.

We will apply this principle to our present alphabet, and see in what respects it is deficient or redundant.

Sect. 1. We treat, first, of the Irregularities of the Consonants.

The following are regular, - that is, they commonly represent but one sound: B, I), J, K, L, M, N, Q, R, and V. Some of them are, however, sometimes silent; they arc B, K, L, M, and N.

Each of the remaining letters represent more than one sound; we treat of them in detail.

C has three sounds, - a hard sound in come, a soft sound in city, and the sound of sh in spacious. It is generally 6oft before e, i, and y, and hard before a, o, and u. It has the sound of sh in the terminations cious, ceous, cial, etc.

F has the sound of v in the word of.

G has two sounds, - a soft before e, i, and y, and a hard before a, o, and u. There are, however, many exceptions. G is silent in gnaw, sign, etc.

H is sometimes silent, and is sometimes used in connection with t and s to represent sounds for which we have no letters in the common alphabet, and with p to express the sound of F.

Q has the sound of K.

S has four sounds, - a sharp sound in the word some, the cognate flat or subvocal sound in as, the sound of sh in mission, and its cognate in measure.

T in the termination tion has the sound of sh. It is used with h to represent the two elementary sounds heard in the beginning of the words then and thin.

W has but one consonant sound. With a preceding vowel it generally forms a diphthong.

Y has but one consonant sound. At the end of words and syllables it is either silent or sounds like i short.

Z in the word azure, and some others, has a sound quite different from its proper sound, corresponding with the sound of s in pleasure. It is a simple elementary sound.

X generally represents two sounds, - the sound of k and 5, as in extreme, or the sound of ga and ze, as in exact. X has also sometimes the sound of Z.