A. Dialectic Modifications of Gutturals and Dentals.

Where this variety of pronunciation is only in degree, without affecting the nature and real character of a guttural or dental consonant, we need not take any notice of it. Gutturals from a Semitic throat have a deeper sound than our own, and some grammarians have made a new class for them by calling them pectoral letters. The guttural flatus asper, as heard in the Swiss "ach " is deeper, and as it were more pectoral, than the usual German ch: but this is owing to a peculiarity of the organs of speech; and whatever letter might be chosen to represent this Swiss ch in a phonetic alphabet, it is certain none but a Swiss could ever pronounce it. Sanskrit grammarians sometimes regard h as formed in the chest (urasya), while they distinguish the other gutturals by the name of tongue-root letters (gihvamuliya). These refinements, however, are of no practical use; because, in dialects where the guttural sound is affected and diverted from its purer intonation, we generally find that the pure sound is lost altogether; so that the two hardly ever co-exist in the same language.