Modern Poets and Poetry of Spain/Preliminary

by James Kennedy

PRELIMINARY NOTE.

 

 

For readers unacquainted with the Spanish language, it may be perhaps most advisable, in this place, to affix a few short instructions for the proper pronunciation of such names and words as are to be found in the following pages.

1. The vowels in Spanish have each invariably their peculiar sound; not as in English, where each has two or more sounds, making them in fact so distinct as strictly requiring to be designated by different characters, or after the manner of the Hebrew points. Thus a has always the broad open sound found in the English words arm, arrack.

e, long or short, as in the English words ere, ever.

i and y, as in machine, syntax.

o, long or short, as in ore, host, hostage.

u has uniformly the sound of oo in food. The Celtic sound of this vowel, preserved in France and Portugal, is unknown in Spain, and also in the Basque or Biscayan language.

2. Of the consonants, b has a softer sound than in English, and approaches to v, which again is made to sound like b. Thus the city of the Havana is, in Spanish spelling, La Habana, and the river Bidasoa is written Vidasoa.

c, before a, o, u, is to be pronounced hard, as in English; before e or i, it is to be sounded like th in thin, though in the provinces this pronunciation is giving way to the French and English mode of sounding the letter. Thus the name of the great Roman orator is pronounced Thithero. ch has always the soft sound it usually has in English, as in chat, check, chin, choke, chum.

d, at the end of a word, is generally pronounced like th: thus Madrid is Madrith; ciudad, a city, is pronounced thiudath; otherwise, both d and t are spoken as in English, or slightly more dentally.

f has the same sound as in English.

g is an aspirate, like our h, more or less guttural, according to the word. The soft sound of this letter, as in gem, left by the Celts in Italy and Portugal, is unknown in Spain, as is also the soft sound of the letter,j.

h may be said to be invariably a silent letter, and seems only used to prevent two vowels running into each other, so as to form a diphthong.

j is a very harsh guttural, like the Hebrew Cheth. Thus Juan (John) is to be pronounced strongly, Hwan; Josè (Joseph) also strongly, Hosè.

The letters k, i, m, n, p, are the same as in English.

q or qu has the sound of our k: thus que (that) is the same as the Italian che.

r, s, t have the same sounds as in English, except that the first has one somewhat rougher, especially when two come together.

x is a strong guttural, for which j is now generally used, as Don Quijote.

z is pronounced as th: thus Cadiz is sounded Cadith.

The Spaniards consider their ll and ñ, or n with a circumflex, distinct letters, but they are in fact only the letters l or n with the sound of i after them, as in the English words million, minion, being the same sound that the French and Italians express by gn, or gl. Several names may be found in the body of this work altered according to our mode of spelling, though in the headings retained as in the original, as Padillia instead of Padilla. For the sake of preserving the sound free from constant explanation or confusion, the like course has been sometimes adopted with regard to other words, as, for instance, the name of the river Genii or Xenil, represented in English as Henil.

Two or more vowels coming together are enunciated so as to form one syllable generally in Spanish, and especially in poetry, yet nevertheless so as to allow of each vowel to be sounded distinctly, as each syllable is also.

With regard to accents, the general rule is, that it should be placed on the penultimate syllable. There are many exceptions, but in print these are always marked by the accent (') on the vowel indicated, except in words of two syllables, which, if ending in a consonant, have generally the accent on the last syllable, if ending in a vowel, on the first, without being notified.

From these notices it may be observed, that the Spanish language is remarkable for two sounds, the guttural and the predominating th, which distinguish it from the two sister dialects of Italy and Portugal, while it is deficient in the soft sound of g and j, found so frequently used in the latter. These two assimilate so much to each other that natives of either country understand those of the other readily, while they cannot those of Spain, showing that the influence of the Gothic and Moorish invaders was impressed there on the pronunciation of the common language, though it was not extended to altering materially the language itself.

Besides the soft sound of the g, there are two other sounds unknown in Spanish, though common in Portugal and France, left by their former Celtic inhabitants, those of the sh or French j, and the disagreeable nasal pronunciation of the letter n. The latter is very slightly given in Don, and a few other words, but the other is unknown. In Portuguese it is so prevalent that they even use it for Latin words which it would be difficult to recognize at first as the originals from which the others were derived; thus the words pluvia, plorare, transformed in Spanish into lluvia, llorar, are in Portuguese further transformed into chuva (shuva), chorar (shorar). The natives of Galicia speak a dialect more allied to Portuguese than the Spanish, being of more decided Celtic descent, like the Portuguese, than the rest of the people of the Peninsula. The natives of Catalonia speak a dialect half French, half Spanish, which may he considered the representative of the ancient Provençal or Limoisin. It is very guttural as well as nasal. The Basque or Biscayan language is entirely distinct from the modern Spanish, and also from the Latin, the Celtic, or that of any neighbouring country, and is well deserving of study. It has no harsh or disagreeable sounds in it, and abounds in vowels, many words having not a single consonant in them.

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ERRATA.

Page	11,	line	18,	instead of	"make it a well," read "use it for a well."
—	60,	—	7,	——	suffice read suffices.
—	66,	—	11,	——	sensibly read sensitively.
—	157,	—	23,	——	sage read shade.
—	271,	—	29,	——	nineteen read eighteen.
—	301,	—	12,	——	Corsair read Corsairs.

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Page 145, line 4, "has been announced," &c. This statement is erroneous, the reference having been made to Mr. J. Russell's Life of Gonzalo de Cordova, translated from Quintana's first volume, London, 1851.