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 lowness. See Reading. The word is originally Latin, accentus; a compound of ad, to, and ecano, to sing. Accentus quasi adcanatus, or juxta cantum. In this sense, accent is synonymous with the Greek τονος; the Latin tenor, or tonor; and the Hebrew שְׁמוֹנֶה, gustus, taste.

among grammarians, is a certain mark, or Accent character placed over a syllable to direct the stress 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; and the circumflex accent (´), which 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 as the Greeks of these three accents.

The Hebrews have a grammatical, a rhetorical, and a 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 tones to syllables; as the rhetorical accents are said to be euphonic, because they tend to make the pronunciation more sweet and agreeable. There are four euphonic accents, and twenty-five tonic; of these 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 purposes with the points in other languages. Their accents are divided into emperors, kings, dukes, &c., each bearing a title answerable to the importance of the distinction it makes. Their emperor rules over a whole phrase, and terminates the sense 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 in Hebrew poetry differ from their management and combination 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. 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 sixth century, by the Jewish doctors of the school of Tiberias, called the Massorets.

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. But, apart from the bewildering discussions of modern scholars, more erudite than wise, the man who with a clear knowledge of the phenomena of the living voice, shall draw his ideas on this subject directly from the ancient grammarians and rhetoricians will find the following things to be undoubted:—(1) That by accent (σποράδα, ῥοῦς) the Greeks understood the elevation or falling of the voice on a particular syllable of a word, either absolutely, or in relation to its position in a sentence, accompanied with an intension or remission of the vocal utterance on that syllable (εὐραῖος, ἀνερός,) occasioning a marked predominance of that syllable over the other syllables of the word. The predominance thus given, however, had no effect whatever on the quantity—long or short—of the accented syllable. The accented syllable in Greek as in English, might be long or it might be short; elevation and emphasis of utterance being one thing, and prolongation of the vocal sound quite another thing, as any one acquainted with the first elements of music will at once perceive. The difficulty which many modern scholars have experienced in conceiving how a syllable could be accented and not lengthened, has arisen partly from a complete want of distinct ideas on the nature of the elements of which human speech is composed, and partly also from a vicious practice which has long prevailed in the British schools, of reading Greek, not according to the laws of its own accentuation, but according to the accent of Latin handed down to us through the Roman Catholic church.

For the rules of Latin accentuation are, as Quintilian and Cicero, and the grammarians expressly mention, very different from the Greek; and the long syllable of a word has the accent in Latin in a hundred cases, where the musical habit of the Greek ear placed it upon the short. There is besides a vast number of words in Greek accented on the last syllable (like voluteer, ambusadae, in English), of which not a single instance occurs in the Latin language. Partly, however, from ignorance, partly from carelessness, and partly from stupidity, our scholastic men transferred the pronunciation of the more popular learned language to that which was less known; and with the help of time and constant usage, so habituated themselves to identify the accented with the long syllable, according to the analogy of the Latin, that they began seriously to doubt the possibility of pronouncing otherwise, and even wrote learned works disavowing the doctrine of accent altogether, as an element of spoken speech among the classical Greeks. But since the appearance of a more philosophical spirit in philology, under the guidance of Hermann, Boeckh, and other master-minds among the Germans, the confused discussions arising from these misunderstandings have ceased; and all our best grammarians now recognise the importance of this element of ancient Hellenic enunciation, while not a few carry out their principles into a consistent practice. The only circumstance, indeed, that prevents our English scholars from practically recognising the element of accent in classical teaching, is the apprehension that this would interfere seriously with the practical inculcation of quantity; an apprehension in which they are certainly justified by the practice of the modern Greeks, who have given such a predominance to accent, as altogether to subordinate, and in many cases completely overwhelm quantity; and who also, in public token of this departure from the classical habit of pronunciation, regularly compose their verses with a reference to the spoken accent only, leaving the quantity—as in modern language generally—altogether to the discretion of the poet. But as experiment will teach any one, that there is no necessity whatever in the nature of the human voice, for this confusion of two essentially different elements, it is not unlikely that British scholars will soon follow the example of the Germans, and read Greek prose at least systematically according to the laws of classical speech, as handed down to us by the grammarians of Alexandria and Byzantium. In the recitation of classical verse, of course, as it was not constructed on accentual principles, the skilful reader will naturally allow the musical accent, or the emphasis of the rhythm to overbear, to a great extent, or altogether to overwhelm, the accent of the individual word; though with regard to the recitation of verse, it will always remain a problem how far the ancients themselves did not achieve an "accentuum eum quantitate apta conciliatio," such as that which Hermann (De emendanda ratione, &c.) describes as the perfection of a polished classical enunciation.

The subject of Greek accent has been frequently handled by distinguished scholars both in this country and abroad; but it may be sufficient to refer the reader for more minute information to a paper in the Classical Museum, vol. i. p. 338; to Pennington's work on Greek pronunciation, Cambridge, 1844; and to a work on the same subject by Blackie, Edinburgh, 1853; and to the German work on Greek accent by Göttling. (English.) London, 1831.

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, every syllable, admits of five accents, according as it is spoken more acutely or remissly; and thus stands for many different things. The same sound ya, according to the accent affixed to it, signifies God, a wall, 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 of accents, 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, ai, ai, ai, ai; to which they have added a fifth, thus ai. They make a kind of modulation, wherein prolonging the duration of the sound of the vowel, they vary the tone, raising and sinking 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 on 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, who are forced to sing most scrupulously; for 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 of with the title Sir, you call him a beast with the same word, only a little varied in the tone. Magaloon, however, makes the language easier to learn on this account. The Siamese are also observed to sing rather than to talk. Their alphabet begins with six characters, all only equivalent to a K, but differently accented. For though in the pronunciation the accents are naturally on the vowels, yet they have some to diversify such of their consonants as are in other respects the same.

in Music. See Music, § Melody.