in 20ll witli funding from
University of Toronto
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HANDBOOK OF PHONETICS
SWEET
llontJon
MACMILLA.N AND CO.
PUBLISHERS TO THE UNIVERSITY OF
Oxford
Clartnbon Jlrcss Strus
-lANDBOOK OF PHONETICS
INCLUDING A
POPULAR EXPOSITION OF
THE PRINCIPLES OF SPELLING REFORM
HENRY SWEET
President oy the Philological Society.-luthor of a 'History o/ English Sounds' £-c.
AT THE (Clarendon press
J! DCCC LXXVII
\AU rights reserved']
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924019
PREFACE.
The importance of phonetics as the indispensable foundation of all study of language — whether that study be purely theoretical, or practical as well — is now generally admitted. Without a knowledge of the laws of sound-change, scientific philology — whether comparative or historical — is impossible, and without phonetics their study degenerates into a mere mechanical enumeration of letter-changes. And now that philologists are directing their attention more and more to the study of living dialects and savage languages, many of which have to be written down for the first time, the absolute necessity of a thorough practical as well as theoretical mastery of phonetics becomes more and more evident. Many instances might be quoted of the way in which important philological facts and laws have been passed over or misrepresented through the observe…