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Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2252, 25 July 1908, Page 2

PRONUNCIATION OF ENGLISH. Professor Skeat, of Cambridge University, has endorsed the statement of Dr. Alios Brandi, Professor of English Philology at Berlin University, that Americans speak better English than 'Britains. If anything were needed to clinch tho matter, says the New York corespondent of the “Times,” it should be the general approval accorded to the views of these authorities by the entertaining comments of American journals. But not all admit the soft impeachment without reservation. An endeavor has been made to approach the subject with becoming seriousness, but sonio of the papers, sensible, perhaps, of certain atrocities of American speech which do not reach Europe, have hot succeeded. The American twang may be dying out, but one bantering editorial writer 6ays it is more frequently heard in American high circles than the cockney accent is heard in England society. Another, on the other hand, is of opinion that tho common speech in the United States descends to no such levels as are to bo found in the East End of London—which is, at least, open to discussion. It is agreed that precision and, in the main, parity of pronunciation are tho rule with educated Americans, c[llo, as Professor Skeat points out, to the greater attention paid to phonetics in this country. With twenty or moro strange tongues of immigrants to adapt to the niceties of the English language, American educationists have essayed a task which British teachers know little of, and the clear English of their foreign pupils testifies to their 6ucces6. But there is no rose without its thorn. While the American, excels in pronunciation, ho lacks intonation. It is confessed that his speech is yet inferior in beauty of delivery to the English of a cultivated Briton. The latter has more color in his tones, more modulation, and wider rhythms. His speech is more varied and musical. But the American talks in descending planes, with no curves.

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