27. Diphthongs and Consonants

Chapter 27 continues the detailed presentation of Franklin’s Reformed Mode of Spelling (RMS), focusing on his diphthongs and their values. Modern IPA equivalents are provided for all diphthongs.The second section describes Franklin’s consonantal system. As in Chapter 26, each RMS character is defined in Franklin’s own words, followed by linguistic and sociolinguistic interpretations and analysis, along with corresponding IPA representations. Questions of prosody and how Franklin’s system accommodates stress and intonation patterns are also addressed.While Franklin’s technical metalanguage is vague – for example, using “thick” for voiced consonants and “thin” for voiceless ones – his ordering of vowels and consonants and the systematic nature of his descriptions (i.e. opposition of voiced voiceless consonants, ordering of vowels according to height, front, back…, choice of characters) reveal a remarkably advanced understanding of English phonology for the time. The degree of novelty and scientific value of his system have generally been overlooked and anticipate the modern approach used by phoneticians today.The third section examines inconsistencies in Franklin and Stevenson’s transcriptions. These data are presented as a “learning curve,” showing how the number of errors decreases as Franklin gains experience transcribing his own alphabet. Of particular note is Franklin’s July 20, 1768 letter to Stevenson and her original manuscript response to Franklin, dated September 26, 1768 (cf. Appendix 2). Both are written in the RMS alphabet and neither has ever been studied phonetically. Differences between this manuscript and the version printed in Vaughan’s 1779 edition (cf. Chapter 25 and Appendices 1 & 2) are analyzed.