Across the wider and outer end of the cone
was stretched a membrane or diaphragm about three inches in diameter.
Into the mouth of the bowl, two or three inches from the diaphragm, my
host spoke one by one a series of articulate but single sounds,
beginning with _a, a, aa, au, o, oo, ou, u, y or ei (long), i (short),
oi, e,_ which I afterwards found to be the twelve vowels of their
language. After he had thus uttered some forty distinct sounds, he
drew from the back of the instrument a slip of something like
goldleaf, on which as many weird curves and angular figures were
traced in crimson. Pointing to these in succession, he repeated the
sounds in order. I made out that the figures in question represented
the sounds spoken into the instrument, and taking out my pencil,
marked under each the equivalent character of the Roman alphabet,
supplemented by some letters not admitted therein but borrowed from
other Aryan tongues. My host looked on with some interest whilst I did
this, and bent his head as if in approval. Here then was the alphabet
of the Martial tongue--an alphabet not arbitrary, but actually
produced by the vocal sounds it represented! The elaborate machinery
modifies the rough signs which are traced by the mere aerial
vibrations; but each character is a true physical type, a visual
image, of the spoken sound; the voice, temper, accent, sex, of a
speaker affect the phonograph, and are recognisable in the record.
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