Alexander John Ellis

“Spelling is only a means of representing sound, and is only good as far as it is a faithful representative.”

“The great difficulty which all writers on pronunciation have to contend with, is the want of a fixed standard of comparison.”

“My object has been to determine, as far as possible, the pronunciation of English at different periods.”

“The history of pronunciation is a history of change.”

“I have endeavoured to give an intelligible account of the leading phonetic results of my investigations.”

“Dialects, which are the sole true sources of historical information about language, die daily.”