poor in vowels, and, like the oriental languages; utterly deficient
in diphthongs.[17] They have neither the _oe_ nor _ue_, which the
Germans consider as the best sounds of their idiom: nor the
Greek,[Greek: ei], [Greek: ui], [Greek: au], [Greek: eu], and the
like; still less the variety of pronunciation of one and the same
vowel, peculiar to the English. The Poles, Russians, and Bohemians,
possess however a twofold _i_, [18] a finer and a coarser one; the
latter of which is not to be found in any other European language, and
is unpleasant to the ear of foreigners. The Poles, besides this, have
_nasal vowels_, as other languages have nasal consonants.[19]

It is a striking peculiarity, that Slavic words very seldom _begin_
with a pure _a_,[20] hardly ever with _e_.[21] There are in the whole
Russian language, only two words of Slavic origin, which have an
initial _e_, and about twenty foreign ones in which this letter has
been preserved in its purity; in all the rest the _e_ is introduced by
_y_; e.g. _Yelisaveta_, Elizabeth; _yest_', Lat. _est_, it is;
_Yepiscop, episcopus_, bishop; _yeress_, heresy, etc. The initial _a_
is more frequent, and is especially preserved in most foreign proper
names, e.g. Alexander, Anna; or in other foreign words, where they
omit the _H_, as _Ad_, Hades, Hell, _Alleluya_, Hallelujah. But the
natural tendency of the language is to introduce it likewise by _y_;
thus they say _yagnya_, in preference to _agnya_, Lat. _agnus_,
although this last also is to be found in the old church books:
_yasti_, to eat, _yakor_ anchor, _yavor_, maple, German _ahorn_.[22]
The _o_ in the beginning of words is pure in most Slavic dialects,
i.e. without a preceding consonant. In Russian it sounds frequently
more like an _a_ than an _o_; e.g. _adin_, one, instead of _odin;
atiotz_, father, instead of _otetz_. But the Vendes of Lusatia
pronounce it _vo_; as also the Bohemians in the language of common