_No sound of_ s _in the Australian languages_.--The distribution of the different elementary articulations over the different languages of the earth, has not been sufficiently studied to enable us to predicate anything concerning the absence or presence of particular sounds, as a measure of the perfection or imperfection of human speech; nevertheless, it is clear that the power of pronouncing a number of elementary sounds sufficient to allow of that difference between word and word, which is necessary for clear and precise language, is one of the great conditions of articulate and distinct speech; and hence, a language of which the elementary sounds are too few, or one wherein the power of combining them to their full extent, is wanting, is the exponent of a low degree of humanity. Still more so would one be wherein a large proportion of the sounds is inarticulate--like the sound of the letter _h_ in English, which is a mere breathing rather than a true articulation. In respect to this latter class of facts, the admission of inarticulate elements of speech, there are two only in the whole range of language; one of which is so common as to occur in almost all the dialects of the world, the other is so rare as to be found in one class of tongues only. These are, the power of _h_ as already stated, and the peculiar _click_ which will be noticed in the languages of Southern Africa.
The inability to combine articulations, which, when taken singly, are sufficiently easy of pronunciation, is another sign of deficiency of power over language, as an instrument, or medium, and, in some form or other, it is a common phænomenon; _e.g._, the sound of _s_, and the sound of[74]_tsh_, are pronounceable enough when taken singly; since we can say _shest_, and we can say _tshest_. The _combination_, however, of _stsh_ is difficult--at least to English organs. There is none such in our language; yet it is a favourite juxtaposition in the Slavonic tongues. Again, to a person unused to comparative philology, it may seem strange to be told that in the Finlandic dialects the combination of any two consonants in the same syllable, is rare: and that such words as _stab_, &c., in order to become pronounceable must be converted into _setab_, or _estab_, &c. Yet this inability to combine consonants with one another is, perhaps, the rule rather than the exception in language.