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The Talking Deaf Man - A Method Proposed, Whereby He Who is Born Deaf, May Learn to Speak, 1692 by John Conrade Amman
page 18 of 35 (51%)
following Chapter, that this my Doctrin will be always lame, because
all Deaf Persons, whom we would teach by the Tongue, Lips, _&c._ will
never by their Sight attain unto these motions: But, besides that the
Sight doth not give place to the Hearing, as to a quick sensibility, I
affirm, that there is no need thereof, if once they have made but any
Progress; for even we our selves do very often not hear in
Pronunciation those Letters which I call _Consonants_, but we collect
them from the _Vowels_ and _Semi-vowels_, commixed together with them:
No Man, for Example, shall so pronounce _b. g._ or _d._ as that he may
be heard at a hundred Paces distant. And this seems to me to be the
principal reason why we can most rarely pronounce or repeat at the
first blush, any word spoken in a foreign Language.

But before I shall unfold the nature, and manner of forming the
_Letters_ in special, I judged that it was not here to be omitted, how
that as all the _Letters_, yea also, and the _Vowels_ them-selves,
cannot by any means be pronounced, as they are a _Simple Breath_, and
not sonorous; for when we, for Example, do whisper somewhat to one in
his Ear, so the _Consonants_ also, excepting those which I call
_Explosive_, may be pronounced vocally, or with the _Voice_ conjoyned;
and there are Nations which pronounce thus, as the _French_ do their
_z._ and their _v._

I shall now treat of the _Letters_ especially, and will examine them
so, as both the absolute Simplicity of the _German Letters_ may be
manifested; and other Nations, from their Mode of Formation, may
learn, how they ought to pronounce them; upon this account also, I
shall add how improperly some Nations do render the same Letters in
their own Language. Now in this Explication I shall observe the same
order as I did in the Division of them, where readily it will appear,
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