There are, in the English language, twenty-four consonantal sounds and only twenty-one letters that are ever used to express them. Of these C, Q, and X are useless, because they represent 6ounds already better represented by other letters. This leaves eighteen useful letters to express twenty-four sounds. The six simple elementary sounds, which have no proper representatives, are Zhe, lsh, The, Ith, Ing, and Cha. (See Pho. Short-hand Alphabet.)

The first, as we have seen, is Written in our common orthography by z or s; the other five have two letters to represent each of them. They are sh, th, ng, and ch.

Sh has no sound but lsh.

Th has two sounds, - a sharp or aspirate sound in thick, and its cognate subvocal in thus.

Ng has three sounds, only one of which is simple and elementary; namely, the sound of Ing in sing. In singe it has the sounds of En and Ja, and in longer, the sounds of Ing and Ga.

Besides these sounds, the n and g are in 6ome words sounded separately, as in engulf, where they have the sound of En and Ga.

Ch has two sounds, - the sound of Cha in each, and the sound of Ka in ache.

There are other combinations of consonants that represent sounds already provided with letters. They are Ph, sounded like F and V, or silent; Gh, sounded like Ga, F, and K, and in many cases silent; Rh, sounded like R; Wr, sounded like R; and Wh, sounded like Hw.

Wh really represents two sounds, the other letters only one, or none, as the case may be.