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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 6

Formation of Sibilants (flatus)

Formation of Sibilants (flatus).

If there is no contact at all, and the breath passes between the two organs without being stopped, still not without giving rise to a certain friction on passing that point of contact where guttural, dental, and labial consonants are formed, we get the three sibilants, or the "winds," as they are more properly called by Hindu grammarians. These are, the pure breathing, without even a guttural modification, commonly called spiritus asper and lenis; the thick guttural flatus, as heard in "loch;" the sharp and soft s for the dentals; and the sharp and soft f for the labials. The sibilants or flatus are distinguished from all other consonants by this, that with them a breathing is really emitted, while the consonants are only so many stops which preclude the emission of vocal sound. A candle applied to the mouth will at once show the difference between the labial flatus asper, as in "find," and the consonantal stops, such as p, b, or even the labial semi-vowel, as heard in "wind." In this respect page 7 the sibilant flatus approaches nearer to the vowels than even the semi-vowels.

As we distinguished between tenuis and media in the consonants, we must admit a twofold intonation for the flatus or the sibilants also. A flatus or sibilant cannot be modified exactly in the same manner as a consonant produced by contact; but, by an analogous process, it may become either "asper" or "lenis," rough or soft. We are best acquainted with this distinction in the primitive and unmodified breathing which necessarily precedes an initial vowel. The spiritus asper and lenis in Greek are modifications of that initial breathing which is inherent in every vowel sound at the beginning of a word or of a syllable. It comes out freely as the spiritus asper in Homer and greek script, frontier, while it is tempered and to our ears hardly audible in 'Aristotle and greek script, hill. In ancient languages the spiritus asper is frequently represented by the dental flatus (s), and the spiritus lenis by a semi-vowel, as, for instance, the Diganima Æolicum.

The dental flatus, as a tenuis or rather as flatus asper, is heard in sin and seal; while the media or lenis is frequently represented by the English z, as in zeal and breeze.

The sharp labial flatus is the pure f, which the Greeks could not pronounce, and which we hear in "find" and "life." The flat corresponding sound is heard in "vine" and "live." This also is a difficult letter to pronounce, and is therefore avoided by many people, or changed into b, as Scaliger said,

"Haud temere antiquas mutat Vasconia voces,
Cui nihil est aliud vivere quàm bibere."

Strictly speaking, and in accordance with our own definitions, every consonant at the end of a word, unless followed by a slight vocal exhalation such as is heard in drug, loud, sob, must become a tenuis. Now, if we take words where the final consonant is a flatus, but where, by the addition of a derivative syllable, the flatus ceases to be really final, we shall see distinctly how the flatus asper and lenis interchange. The sharp dental flatus is heard in "grass" and "grease." Here the s is really final, although an e is put at the end of grease. If we form the two verbs, to graze and to grease, we have page 8 the corresponding flat s, the common German s. Exactly the same grammatical process applied to the labial flatus changes "life" into "live," i.e. the sharp labial flatus into the flat.

Some languages, as, for instance, Sanskrit, acknowledge none but sharp sibilants; and a media followed by a flatus is changed in Sanskrit into a tenuis.