Excerpt from Primer of Phonetics

This book is intended to supply the double want of a new edition of my Handbook of Phonetics and of a concise introduction to phonetics, with especial reference to English and the four foreign languages most studied in this country - French, German, Latin, and Greek.

The Handbook of Phonetic was published in 1877 - at a time when the study of phonetics was confined to a few isolated specialists in different countries. Since then phonetics has made no progress in the country - has, indeed, rather gone back - but has greatly developed on the Continent, where an extensive phonetic literature has sprung up in the last few years, especially in Germany - a literature which becomes more and more indigestible every year.

Under these circumstances, aggravated by my own want of access to speakers of foreign langues, I find it impossible at present to comply with the demand for a new edition of the Handbook. Even the compromise I now offer has not been undertaken without hesitation.

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