in reading or speaking, an inflection of the voice, which gives to each syllable of a word its due pitch in respect of height or loudness. See the article READING, No IV.—The word is originally Latin, *accentus*; a compound of *ad*, to; and *can*, to sing. *Accentus*, quasi *adcantus*, or *juncta cantum*. In this sense, fenfe, accent is synonymous with the Greek τόνος; the Latin tenor, or tonus; and the Hebrew נון, יתעט, יתעט, יתעט. —For the doctrine of Accents in Composition, see Poetry, Part II. n° 53, 62, 70, 90, 98.

Accent, among grammarians, is a certain mark or character placed over a syllable, to direct the strels of its pronunciation. We generally reckon three grammatical accents in ordinary use, all borrowed from the Greeks, viz. the acute accent (´), which shows when the tone of the voice is to be raised. The grave accent (´), when the note or tone of the voice is to be depressed. The circumflex accent (´ or ´), is composed of both the acute and the grave, and points out a kind of undulation of the voice. The Latins have made the same use of these three accents.

The Hebrews have a grammatical, a rhetorical, and musical accent: though the first and last seem, in effect, to be the same; both being comprised under the general name of tonic accents, because they give the proper tone to syllables; as the rhetorical accents are said to be euphonic, inasmuch as they tend to make the pronunciation more sweet and agreeable. There are four euphonic accents, and 25 tonic; of which some are placed above, and others below the syllables; the Hebrew accents serving not only to regulate the risings and fallings of the voice, but also to distinguish the sections, periods, and members of periods, in a discourse; and to answer the same purpose with the points in other languages.—Their accents are divided into emperors, kings, dukes, &c. each bearing a title answering to the importance of the distinction it makes. Their emperor rules over a whole phrase, and terminates the sentence completely; answering to our point. Their king answers to our colon; and their duke to our comma. The king, however, occasionally becomes a duke, and the duke a king, as the phrases are more or less short. It must be noted, by the way, that the management and combination of these accents differ in Hebrew poetry from what they are in prose. The use of the tonic or grammatical accents has been much controverted: some holding that they distinguish the sense; while others maintain that they are only intended to regulate the music, or singing; alleging that the Jews sing, rather than read, the scriptures in their synagogues.*

* Cooper, Dom. Mor. Clav. p. 31.

Be this, however, as it will, it is certain the ancient Hebrews were not acquainted with these accents. The opinion which prevails amongst the learned, is, that they were invented about the fifth century, by the Jewish doctors of the school of Tiberias, called the Mafforets.

As to the Greek accents, now seen both in manuscripts and printed books, there has been no less dispute about their antiquity and use than about those of the Hebrews. Isaac Vossius endeavours to prove them of modern invention; asserting, that anciently they had nothing of this kind, but only a few notes in their poetry, which were invented by Arilophorus the grammarian, about the time of Ptolemy Philopater; and that these were of musical, rather than grammatical use, serving as aids in the singing of their poems, and very different from those introduced afterwards. He also shows from several ancient grammarians, that the manner of writing the Greek accents in these days was quite different from that which appears in our books. The author of La Methode Greque, p. 546, observes, that the right pronunciation of the Greek language being natural to the Greeks, it was needless for them to mark it by accents in their writings: so that, according to all appearance, they only began to make use of them so low as the time in which the Romans, being curious to learn the Greek tongue, sent their children to study at Athens, thinking thereby to fix the pronunciation, and to facilitate it to strangers; which happened, as the same author observes, a little before Cicero's time. Wettstein, Greek professor at Basil, in a learned disputation endeavours to prove the Greek accents of an older standing. He owns that they were not always formed in the same manner by the ancients; but thinks that difference owing to the different pronunciation which obtained in the different parts of Greece. He brings several reasons, a priori, for the use of accents, even in the earliest days: as that they then wrote all in capital letters equidistant from each other, without any distinction either of words or phrases, which without accents could scarce be intelligible; and that accents were necessary to distinguish ambiguous words, and to point out their proper meaning; which he confirms from a dispute on a passage in Homer, mentioned by Aristotle in his Poetics, chap. v. Accordingly, he observes, that the Syrians, who have tonic, but no distinctive accents, have yet invented certain points, placed either below or above the words, to show their mood, tense, person, or sense.

The use of accents, to prevent ambiguities, is most remarkably perceived in some eastern languages, particularly the Siamese and Chinese. Among the people of China, every word, or (which is the same thing) syllable, admits of five accents, as spoken more acutely or remissly; and thus stands for many different things. The same found ya, according to the accent affixed to it, signifies God, a small, excellent, stupidity, and a goose.—The Chinese have but 330 spoken words in their language; but these being multiplied by the different accents or tones, which affect the vowels, furnish a language tolerably copious. By means hereof, their 330 simple sounds come to denote 1650 things; but this being hardly sufficient, they are increased further by aspirates added to each word, to double the number. The Chinese only reckon four accents for which the missionaries use the following marks, a, a, a, a; to which they have added a fifth, thus, a. They make a kind of modulation; wherein, prolonging the duration of the sound of the vowel, they vary the tone, raising and linking it by a certain pitch of voice: so that their talking is a sort of music or singing. Attempts have been made to determine the quantity of the rise or fall in each accent by means of musical notes; but this is hard to effect, as being different in different persons. Hence the great difficulty of the language to foreigners; they are forced to sing most scrupulously: if they deviate ever so little from the accent, they say quite a different thing from what was intended. Thus, meaning to compliment the person you are talking to with the title Sir, you call him a beast, with the same word, only a little varied in the tone. Magalhans makes the language easier to learn on this account.—The Siamese are also observed to sing rather than talk. Their alphabet begins with six characters, all only equivalent to a K, but differently accented. For tho' in the pronunciation the accents are naturally on the vowels, yet they have some to diversify such of their consonants.