OBS. 5.—­Walker thought a long or short vowel sound essential to a long or short quantity in any syllable.  By this, if he was wrong in it, (as, in the chapter on Versification, I have argued that he was,) he probably disturbed more the proper distinction of quantities, than that of vowel sounds.  As regards long and short, therefore, Perley’s regret seems to have cause; but, in making the same objection to “slender and broad,” he reasons illogically.  So far as his view is right, however, it coincides with the following earlier suggestion:  “The terms long and short, which are often used to denote certain vowel sounds; being also used, with a different import, to distinguish the quantity of syllables, are frequently misunderstood; for which reason, we have substituted for them the terms open and close;—­the former, to denote the sound usually given to a vowel when it forms or ends an accented syllable; as, ba, be, bi, bo, bu, by;—­the latter, to denote the sound which the vowel commonly takes when closed by a consonant; as, ab, eb, ib, ob, ub”—­Brown’s Institutes, p. 285.

I. OF THE LETTER A.

The vowel A has four sounds properly its own; they are named by various epithets:  as,

1.  The English, open, full, long, or slender a; as in aid, fame, favour, efficacious.

2.  The French, close, curt, short, or stopped a; as in bat, banner, balance, carrying.

3.  The Italian, broadish, grave, or middle a; as in far, father, aha, comma, scoria, sofa.

4.  The Dutch, German, Old-Saxon, or broad a; as in wall, haul, walk, warm, water.

OBSERVATIONS.

OBS. 1.—­Concerning the number of sounds pertaining to the vowel a, or to certain other particular letters, and consequently in regard to the whole number of the sounds which constitute the oral elements of the English language, our educational literati,—­the grammarians, orthoepists [sic—­KTH], orthographers, elocutionists, phonographers, and lexicographers,—­are found to have entertained and inculcated a great variety of opinions.  In their different countings, the number of our phonical elements varies from twenty-six to more than forty.  Wells says there are “about forty elementary sounds.”—­School Gram., Sec.64.  His first edition was more positive, and stated them at “forty-one.”  See the last and very erroneous passage which I have cited at the foot of page 162.  In Worcester’s Universal and Critical Dictionary, there appear to be noted several more than forty-one, but I know not whether this author, or Walker either, has anywhere told us how many of his marked sounds he considered to be severally different from all others.  Sheridan and Jones admitted twenty-eight.  Churchill acknowledges, as undisputed and indisputable, only twenty-six; though he enumerates, “Of simple vowel sounds, twelve, or perhaps thirteen” (New Grammar, p. 5,) and says, “The consonant sounds in the English language, are nineteen, or rather twenty.”—­P. 13.