SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS. 199
means so violent a change as is generally supposed.
Even without going beyond the commonest words in
our vocabulary we have whole classes of words like
machine, marine, oblique, antique, &cin which long i
retains its Roman value. In geographical names, such as
Alabama, Chicago, Granada, Medina, Messina, the accented
vowels all have the Roman values. In such names as
Isaiah, Achaia, Cairo, the diphthong also has its strict
analytical value. Indeed, the tendency is becoming
stronger and stronger to retain as much as possible the
native pronunciation of foreign names. The definite
adoption of the Romic principle by the Indian govern¬
ment, and the reformed pronunciation of Latin, are all
most important moves in the same direction.
History and Etymology.
One of the commonest arguments against phonetic
spelling is that it would destroy the historical and etymo¬
logical value of the present system. One writer protests
against it as a ‘ reckless wiping out of the whole history
of the language/ imagining, it appears, that as soon as
a phonetic alphabet has once firmly established itself,
the existing Nomic literature will at once disappear by
magic, together with all the older documents of the
language from Alfred to Chaucer. It need hardly be
said that a few months' study of the language of Chaucer,
or, better still, of the Anglo-Saxon Gospels, or, best of
all, of both of them, would give what a life spent in
the mechanical employment of our Nomic orthography
fails to give, namely, some of the materials on which
a rudimentary knowledge of the history and etymology
of the English language might be based.