Evening Post. SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 1935. THE SPOKEN WORD

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 134, 8 June 1935, Page 8

Evening Post. SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 1935. THE SPOKEN WORD

It has always been somewhat of a puzzle and source of wonderment, fthe difference between the written and the spoken word, between what people say in print and what, they say in person. This is no new thing nor is it confined to the English language nor to modern times. Rome had her Cockneys with a misplacement of the aspirate, like the famous Arrius of Catullus— the classical 'Arry—who, when he wanted to say "insidias" pronounced it "hinsidias," as a Cockney might say "hinsidious." Catullus and his friends were glad to hear what they thought the last of him, when he went for a voyage to Greece across the lonian Sea, but—subito affertur nuntius horribilis lonios fluctus, postquam illuc Arrius isset, jam non lonios esse, sed Hionios—"suddenly horrible tidings came that the lonian waves, when Arrius reached them, were no longer lonian,, but Hionian." Then again we know from several sources, such as the plays of Plautus and the familiar letters of Cicero, that the spoken language of Rome must have differed greatly f romwhat we find written in the extant works of the historians and poets and the formal orations of Cicero himself. But, pace all the professors, we do not know how Latin was pronounced. What would we not give to have a record on the disc of Horace reciting his Odes to Maecenas or Cicero holding forth in the Forum or even the three famous words that Caesar uttered:—Veni, vidi, vici . ("I came, I saw, I conquered")! These last the modern schoolboy, by what authority we are unaware, is taught to pronounce "Wany, weedy, weaky," surely a conjunction of the silliest and feeblest sounds imaginable to put in the mouth of the man who mastered the Romans, themselves the conquerors of the world. But the Romans had no gramophone, no talkies, no radio, and these are the recording, reproducing, and broadcasting agencies that are exercising such a profound influence on the spoken word today. They give us the sounds of speech, something that no practicable system of phonetic symbols can do. There are twenty-six letters in the English alphabet, but there are at least forty distinct sounds requiring symbols in what is described by professors of phonetics as "Standard English," namely "the nearest approximation [in the opinion of one] to the general usage of educated people in London and neighbourhood." When the various dialects of the British Isles are included, the number of sounds is nearly doubled, and, if we proceed overseas to America and the British Dominions, under the aegis of the English-Speaking Union, we shall have to make the list of symbols for sounds far beyond the resources of all the typography in the world to represent. As it is, the so-called phonetic alphabet utilises Greek, Anglo-Saxon, and Gaelic characters, ordinary letters inverted, algebraic signs, and hieroglyphics like those one sees* in a doctor's prescription. One shudders to think what a complete universal alphabet on these lines would look like. As for attempting to reach some common standard of spoken English by this means, one might as well try to learn Chinese. Fortunately, the almost universal radio and broadcasting are doing the job for us in a much more direct, natural, and pleasant way.

In Britain the 8.8.C. takes this work of educating the public seriously. Every announcer, before he is allowed to broadcast, is required to pass a test before the microphone with a board of officials as judges. A "phonetician" reports whether the voice is'suitable; whether there are defects of speech, however small; whether the dialect of English is suitable; whether the pronunciation of foreign languages is moderately good; whether die candidate can read aloud intelligently. Beyond the official board is the vast audience of listeners-in who are themselves .critics and judges and make their opinions felt. All this is explained iv a recent book, Mr. A. Lloyd James's "The Broadcast Word," .which is fully reviewed by Professor H. C. Wyld in "The Listener." It appears that Britain, with its more pronounced-provincial dialects and accents, is harder to please with announcers than New Zealand with its more uniform standard of speech. It is the old North v. South controversy again. The Northerners, with their broader accents, object to die mincing tones of what they call "SoutherE English," while the Southerners retaliate with a sneer at barbarous provincialism. The Soudi has already won the day, because the 8.8.C. sets a standard based on the Southern speech. The Nordierners may gnash their teeth, when they hear an announcer "putting on side," as diev have it. but the victory is with die majority. -

Outside Britain there is America with an accent so different that before the era of broadcasling and the talkies one might fairly have anticipated the ultimate creation of a language, just as Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, all de-

rived from the original Latin, are all now distinct languages. It is the talkie that now looks like bridging the gap between the divergent tongues. Hollywood finds it pays to produce talkies with English actors and Americans who have schooled themselves to SDeak in a way that will not offend the ears of British audiences. Australia and New Zealand definitely follow the Southern variety of English speech, though the original settlers came from all over the British Isles. At the worst iv these Dominions the spoken language falls into a harsh variant of Cockney; at the best it ranks high as a clear, manly type of cultured English. There are no local accents, though some people declare they can pick an Aucklander by the pleasant, high-pitched drawl they say is characteristic of the northern city. In any case, nobody wants uniformity; it is the variety that lends charm to the spoken word.