¹ ‘Mieges Nouvelle Methode ist die ausführlichste und beste der von Franzosen verfassten englischen Grammatiken,’ says Spira in Quellen und Forschungen 115.20. Flasdieck, too, thinks that it is ‘die eingehendste und zuverlässigste der von Franzosen verfassten engl. Grammatiken’ (Anglia 56.23).

² Karl Luick, Historische Grammatik der englischen Sprache §490 Anm. 1 (Leipzig 1914-).

³ This alleged mistake is referred to no less than three times by Spira, viz. in §§9, 234, and 300. Ekwall (Englische Studien 48.287) agrees with Spira that such a pronunciation ‘ein irrtum ist’, forgetting that the same ‘mistake’ occurs e.g. in The Writing Scholar's Companion (1695), edited by Ekwall himself. The ‘a François’, which corresponds to modern [d], is merely a dialectal variant of [Λ]—cf. Wright, English Dialect Grammar, Index. Tongs and tongues are frequently coupled by early orthoepists in their lists of words pronounced alike, e.g. in Hodges, A Special Help to Orthographie (1643), and in Cooper, Grammatica Linguae Anglicanae (1685). In Twelfth Night 1.3.97 ff. Shakespeare quibbles on tongues and tongs.

⁴ This is Ekwall's opinion of Spira's study (Englische Studien 48.285 f.): ‘In seiner behandlung der quellen verfährt der verfasser mit lobenswerter behutsamkeit . . . . Aber auch wenn an Spiras buch eines oder das andere auszusetzen ist, so muss es jedenfalls als eine sorgfältige und zuverlässige und eine fördernde leistung bezeichnet werden.‘

⁵ DNB and Cockayne's Complete Peerage.

⁶ Quoted from Spira §427.

⁷ Jordan-Matthes, Handbuch der mittelenglischen Grammatik §217 (Heidelberg, 1934).

⁸ Wright, Index.

⁹ Spira's argumentation, one of the worst examples of how preconceptions may destroy philological common-sense, should be held up as a warning to students of English phonology. The -ff of Miege's transcriptions loff, gloff, doff, aboff must not, he says, be taken to indicate unvoicing of the labiodental spirant, because Miege uses double consonants to remind his French readers that the consonant must be pronounced. ‘Eis musste Miege überhaupt schwer fallen, das engl. v an dieser Stelle durch ein französisches Zeichen wiederzugeben.‘ Why should it be difficult to write -ve in conformity with the ending of such French words as vive, neuve? In point of fact Miege uses -ve to render the final v in sieve, which he transcribes sive (Spira §335). Again, if final -ff stands for v in loff (love), etc., then it must also represent v in laff (laugh), câff (cough), enoff, roff, toff (Spira §398, 401, 380). But in these words Spira does not hesitate to interpret -ff as f!

¹⁰ In the Dictionary Miege describes ea as follows: ‘Cette Diphtongue en Anglois prend generalement la Prononciation de l’e masculin; de sorte que l’a ne sert proprement qu'a rendre longue la Prononciation de l’e. Exemple meat, clean, weary, to bear, to speak, appease, conceal. Il est vrai, qu'il a plusieurs Mots, où l’a est conté pour rien. Comme en ces Mots, beard, bread . . .’ (quoted from Spira 134 fn. 1).

¹¹ Spira §336.

¹² Ibid. 133 fn. 1.

¹³ English Dialect Grammar, Index.

¹⁴ Ibid. §68. Wright's phonetic symbols, though different from those of the IPA, have been retained in this paper in quotations from his Grammar.

¹⁵ H. Kökeritz, English Pronunciation as described in Shorthand Systems of the 17th and 18th Centuries 94, 117 (Studia Neophilologica 7.73–146).

¹⁶ ‘Mais cette Prononciation n'est pas du bel usage’ (quoted from Spira §343).

¹⁷ Spira §347.

¹⁸ Wright §§59, 136, etc.

¹⁹ Miege transcribes Jane with French é (Dgéne, Spira §357), which Luick (§§493 Anm. 1, 516 Anm. 2b) takes as an indication of the closer sound for ME ā and ai, otherwise not recorded until 1735. Since Miege renders ME ā by ai in all other words, the isolated occurrence of this é is so striking that Luick's interpretation can hardly be to the point. Mather Flint, who was responsible for the revised editions of Miege appearing in 1750, 1756, etc., did not alter this é, apparently because it agreed with his own analysis of a as é in French siége, now siège (see further my study Mather Flint on Early Eighteenth Century English Pronunciation, now in press); however, this cannot have been the sound aimed at by Miege. The explanation is, in fact, simple enough. By é Miege used to denote the equivalent of ME , which he identified with the ‘e masculin’ in pieté. Hence his é corresponds to modern [i:], and the name in question should therefore have been written Jean rather than Jane. We have here, as already pointed out by Zachrisson (English Vowels 122 f.), an excellent parallel of the archaic Jeames for James.

²⁰ Spira §§353 ff., 396.

²¹ Op.cit. §520.

²² Wright §38 ff.

²³ Spira §354.

²⁴ Wright, Index.

²⁵ Ibid. §82 ff.

²⁶ Op.cit. §40 f.; Anglia 45.157; Anglia Beiblatt 38.153, 323.

²⁷ English Vowels, 145 f.; The English Pronunciation at Shakespeare's Time 79 ff.

²⁸ In Prononciation de la Langue Angloise (1740) Mather Flint analyzes the Scottish sound in this way: ‘L’u long comme l’u fr. ainsi tune au lieu de prononcer tioune ils pron. tune. La Diphtongue oo comme iu ou u fr. good, book, foot comme s'ils étoient imités giud, biuk, futt.’ See my forthcoming study of Flint's pronunciation p. 75.

²⁹ Offelen's dependency on Festeau is obvious; like Festeau he directs English th to be pronounced as s, and he transcribes kn in know, knife, knee with dn, adding, ‘D muss nicht viel gehört werden’ (Englische Studien 10.364). Nicolai's rule, ‘Si verò n statim sequitur, ferè ut t, ut know, knife, knee’ (quoted from MLN 7.151), likewise echoes Festeau's ‘Les Mots ou il est suivy d'une n, ou il se prononce approchant du t’, with the identical examples know, knife, knee (Spira §271). Since Festeau was copied, directly or indirectly, by German, Italian, Dutch, and Scandinavian orthoepists, their equation of initial kn with tn is historically valueless; the only evidence of tn that remains is Festeau's vague statement that k in kn was pronounced ‘approchant du t’ (for a detailed discussion see my study of Mather Flint).

³⁰ English Vowels 107 ff.

³¹ Spira §219.

³² Spira §260; English Vowels 107.

³³ H. Kökeritz, The Phonology of the Suffolk Dialect §§83, 85 f., 93 f. (Uppsala, 1932). Since the French semivowel in lui and the Swedish u in hus are closely related, I am here using a symbol which recalls the semivowel to render the Swedish (and Eastern English) vowel in preference to [ü:], which would represent a central vowel. The Swedish dialect alphabet has a very good symbol for this sound, which I made use of to render the Suffolk vowel.

³⁴ Anglia Beiblatt 39.323.

³⁵ John Wilkins, An Essay Towards a Real Character 363 (London, 1668); The Phonology of the Suffolk Dialect 188 fn. 1.

³⁶ A. J. Barnouw, Echoes of the Pilgrim Fathers' Speech 38 (Amsterdam, 1923).

³⁷ N. C. Stalling, Zweedsche Spraakkunst 57 (Rotterdam, 1931).

³⁸ The Phonology of the Suffolk Dialect 190 fn. 3.

³⁹ The Yale College Library has the 2d edition of 1754.

⁴⁰ Quoted from H. C. Wyld, A History of Modern Colloquial English³ 103 (Oxford, 1936).