un The initial syllables UN and UM belong to the family of wrong.

See preceding column.

RULE No. I.

Except un, meaning a, an, in English,...1 there is no such initial sound in French represented by the letters un, um. The genius of our pronunciation will have it so; and no rule is required in France to enforce this point, which is to all an instinctive attribute of national euphony. We insist upon the remark, because it has been said and published somewhere in this country, that there is no difference between un and in amongst French gentlemen! Indeed, this is the grossest error ever printed, as yet, for the use of American schools. A single word will show its very strange, practical consequences. For example, any French boy will pronounce injuste with the initial in sounded as aang in English; but should the American student trust the dangerous assertion mentioned above, he must say to a knave: Vous êtes un juste, Monsieur; (you are a just, righteous man, sir.) And thus, misled by unsound rules, will the poor foreigner kill his own meaning with his very voice, and 2333 honest French words at a breath, by only one sound out of tune! Ab uno disce omnes.

Conclusion. The nasal syllable in is never sounded un; nor un, in. Un is uhng; in is aang; and initial un is sounded ohng by the natives of France. That's the rule.

nasal before consonants.

hun

Hun,

hum

Total of initial ON and UN,.

Aggregates of all initial nasal sounds,.................

6,226

oms

dom, nom, surnom, surnoms,

plomb, Colomb,

omb

omps

romps,

CO

promp-tes.

to-nne.

lio-nne, fonctio-nne. passio-nnes. crayo-nnes.

RULE No. II.

Final an, in, on, un, are all masculine sounds; and, with the exception of an, in some proper names, they are all and always nasal. But in the middle of words, or when forming the penultimate sounds, these syllables lie under the rule of the initial sounds, viz.:

They are nasal only before consonants.

They lose their nasality BEFORE ALL OTHER SOUNDS; and moreover, such is always the case in the middle of words, if n or m should be doubled.

Therefore, whenever a single or compound vowel, or a diphthong, immediately follows an, in, on, un, the nasal sound is dissolved, and, instead of it, we have simply to pronounce a, e, i, o, u, or some derivatives, which stand alone, the norm (single or double) being at once separated from them, as if by a diæresis, to begin the next syllable. Example:

bien, bientôt. surmontions.