SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.
[Under This heading its nctice such Books of the week as hare not been reserved for rainy in other fcrins.]
Phonetic Spelling : a Proposed Universal Alphabet for the Rendering of English, French, German, and all other Forms of Speech. By Sir Harry Johnston, G.C.M.G., K.C.B. (Cambridge University Press. 3s. 6d. net.)—With great laboriousness and a display of much knowledge Sir Harry Johnston has constructed a series of symbols, some eighty in number, which will, he claims, represent upon paper the sounds of every form of human speech. His alphabet is designed to provide phonetic spelling not only for the great European tongues, but also for those of Asia and Africa ; he wishes his signs to denote the peculiarities of such widely diverse forms of speech as Welsh, Arabic, Chinese (with its tones), and Hottentot (with its clicks). The qualities which the perfect phonetic alphabet must possess are, according to Sir Harry Johnston, as follows :—
"It must be logical; it must be universally applicable to the rendering of all languages as well as English ; as free as possible from resemblances between letters that are confusing to the eye ; and it must be the easiest alphabet to print, write, and read which is consistent with the accurate rendering of speech-sounds."
We are ready to believe that Sir Harry Johnston's scheme comes as near to this ideal as is possible. But we remain unconvinced of the need for any such alphabet, and would have been glad to have had a chapter from Sir Harry Johnston to explain precisely what the need is. All such schemes for
systematizing spelling are bound, we think, to break down, because they are attempts to force a foot into a boot that is too small for it. The sounds of human speech, in the first place, are far too subtle to be capable of anything but the roughest reproduction upon paper. Even Sir Harry Johnston does not pretend that his symbols are absolutely
accurate. The German " ii " and the French " u," for instance, are represented by the same symbol, though they sound markedly different ; and, again, the English word "phonetic" and the French word " phonetique " are by this system spelled identically. When, after all this trouble has been taken to get a perfect alphabet, it remains such an inaccurate instrument, we cannot help wondering whether the
trouble was worth while. In the second place, the sounds of human speech are constantly altering, and it is impossible
to believe that the existence of a scientific alphabet could check the tendency, nor would the check be necessarily desirable. Sir Harry Johnston talks gaily of forcing the German nation to make up its mind whether it wants to
pronounce " w" as " w" or as "v" ; but surely this is carrying a passion for tidiness to unreasonable limits. The truth is often forgotten that the fundamental object of spelling is to inform the reader of the meaning of a word and not of its pronunciation. No amount of phonetic spelling will help anyone to master the real difficulties of pronouncing such a language as Russian ; and if once the pronunciation of a word is known, its " accurate " spelling becomes a matter of
unimportant convention. We confess that we would sooner see a return to the haphazard spelling of the Renaissance than an attempt at putting the languages of the world into a strait-waistcoat of eighty scientifically phonetic symbols.
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