[Footnote 22:  “Points of articulation” must be understood to include tongue and lip positions of the vowels.]

[Footnote 23:  Including, under the fourth category, a number of special resonance adjustments that we have not been able to take up specifically.]

[Footnote 24:  In so far, it should be added, as these sounds are expiratory, i.e., pronounced with the outgoing breath.  Certain languages, like the South African Hottentot and Bushman, have also a number of inspiratory sounds, pronounced by sucking in the breath at various points of oral contact.  These are the so-called “clicks.”]

The phonetic habits of a given language are not exhaustively defined by stating that it makes use of such and such particular sounds out of the all but endless gamut that we have briefly surveyed.  There remains the important question of the dynamics of these phonetic elements.  Two languages may, theoretically, be built up of precisely the same series of consonants and vowels and yet produce utterly different acoustic effects.  One of them may not recognize striking variations in the lengths or “quantities” of the phonetic elements, the other may note such variations most punctiliously (in probably the majority of languages long and short vowels are distinguished; in many, as in Italian or Swedish or Ojibwa, long consonants are recognized as distinct from short ones).  Or the one, say English, may be very sensitive to relative stresses, while in the other, say French, stress is a very minor consideration.  Or, again, the pitch differences which are inseparable from the actual practice of language may not affect the word as such, but, as in English, may be a more or less random or, at best, but a rhetorical phenomenon, while in other languages, as in Swedish, Lithuanian, Chinese, Siamese, and the majority of African languages, they may be more finely graduated and felt as integral characteristics of the words themselves.  Varying methods of syllabifying are also responsible for noteworthy acoustic differences.  Most important of all, perhaps, are the very different possibilities of combining the phonetic elements.  Each language has its peculiarities.  The ts combination, for instance, is found in both English and German, but in English it can only occur at the end of a word (as in hats), while it occurs freely in German as the psychological equivalent of a single sound (as in Zeit, Katze).  Some languages allow of great heapings of consonants or of vocalic groups (diphthongs), in others no two consonants or no two vowels may ever come together.  Frequently a sound occurs only in a special position or under special phonetic circumstances.  In English, for instance, the z-sound of azure cannot occur initially, while the peculiar quality of the t of sting is dependent on its being preceded by the s.  These dynamic factors, in their totality, are as important for the proper understanding of the phonetic genius of a language as the sound system itself, often far more so.