On Early English Pronunciation, with Especial Reference to Shakespeare and Chaucer: On the pronunciation of the XIIIth and previous centuries, of Anglosaxon, Icelandic, Old Norse and Gothic, with chronological tables of the value of letters and expressions of sounds in English writing

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Philological Society, 1869 - English language
 

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Page 624 - JOHNSON : Why, Sir, consider how much easier it is to learn a language by the ear, than by any marks. Sheridan's Dictionary may do very well ; but you cannot always carry it about with you : and, when you want the word, you have not the Dictionary. It is like the man who has a sword that will not draw.
Page 632 - In short, whatever the difficulties and inconveniences now are, they will be more easily surmounted now than hereafter; and some time or other it must be done, or our writing will become the same with the Chinese as to the difficulty of learning and using it...
Page 455 - The verb is now very variable: je hais, tu hais, il hait; nous haïssons, vous haïssez, ils haïssent.
Page 470 - THE DANE; composed in the reign of Edward I., about AD 1280. Formerly edited by Sir F. MADDEN for the Roxburghe Club, and now re-edited from the unique MS. Laud Misc. 108, in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, by the Rev. WALTER W. SKEAT, MA 8vo. sewed, pp. Iv. and 160. 10».
Page 624 - I remember an instance: when I published the Plan for my Dictionary, Lord Chesterfield told me that the word great should be pronounced so as to rhyme to state; and Sir William Yonge sent me word that it should be pronounced so as to rhyme to seat, and that none but an Irishman would pronounce it grait. Now here were two men of the highest rank, the one, the best speaker in the House of Lords, the other, the best speaker in the House of Commons, differing entirely.
Page 473 - If we do not accept wald had made him swear to give his daughter to the "hexte" = highest, tallest, man alive, and then asks Hwere mithe i finden ani so hey So hauelok is, or so sley f 1083 It is evident that the two couplets ought to correspond.
Page 624 - Sir, what entitles Sheridan to fix the pronunciation of English ? He has, in the first place, the disadvantage of being an Irishman; and if he says he will fix it after the example of the best company, why, they differ among themselves.
Page 590 - De supprimer, conformément à ses précédents , quelques lettres doubles qui ne se prononcent pas ; 3° De simplifier l'orthographe des noms composés, en les réunissant le plus possible en un seul mot ; 4° De régulariser la désinence orthographique des mots terminés en ant et ent ; 5° De distinguer, par une légère modification (la cédille placée sous le t), des mots terminés en tie et tion, qui se prononcent tantôt avec le son du t et tantôt avec le son de l's; 6...
Page 630 - At present there is no standard of pronunciation. There are many ways of pronouncing English correctly, that is according to the usage of large numbers of persons of either sex in different parts of the country, who have received a superior education.
Page 470 - The Ancient English Romance of Havelok the Dane ; accompanied by the French Text: with an Introduction, Notes, and a Glossary.

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