Note 11 — Chapter II · Phonology of Pennsylvania Dutch.

The real physiological generation of these flat consonants is very difficult for an Englishman to understand. Dr. C. L. Merkel, of Leipzig, a middle-German, confesses that for a long time he did not understand the pure b, d, not having heard them in his neighbourhood. He distinguishes (Physiologie der Menschlichen Sprache, Leipzig, 1866, pp. 146-156), 1. The "soft shut sounds" or mediæ, characterized by an attempt to utter voice before the closure is released, 2. "the half-hard shut sounds" or tenues implosivæ, characterized by a sound produced by compressing the air in the mouth by the elevation of the larynx, the glottis being closed, which "therefore acts like a piston," followed by the sudden opening of the mouth and glottis, allowing the vowel to pass, (this is his description of the flat sounds, which he says Brücke, a Low-Saxon, reckons among his mediæ), 3. "the hard explosive shut sounds," characterized by a shut mouth and open glottis through which the unvocalised breath is forced against the closing barrier more strongly than in the last case, but without pressure from the diaphragm, 4. "the aspirated or sharpened explosive sound," in which the last pressure occurs with a jerk. The compound English distinction, p, b; t, d; k, g, seem almost impossible for a middle and south-German to understand.—A. J. E.