The Grammar of English Grammars, page 308 by Gould Brown
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, o, P p, Q q, R r, S s, T t, U u, V v, W w, X x, Y y, Z z.]
OBSERVATIONS.
OBS. 1.--A letter consists not in the figure only, or in the power only, but in the figure and power united; as an ambassador consists not in the man only, or in the commission only, but in the man commissioned. The figure and the power, therefore, are necessary to constitute the letter; and a name is as necessary, to call it by, teach it, or tell what it is. The class of a letter is determined by the nature of its power, or sound; as the ambassador is plenipotentiary or otherwise, according to the extent of his commission. To all but the deaf and dumb, written language is the representative of that which is spoken; so that, in the view of people in general, the powers of the letters are habitually identified with their sounds, and are conceived to be nothing else. Hence any given sound, or modification of sound, which all men can produce at pleasure, when arbitrarily associated with a written sign, or conventional character, constitutes what is called a letter. Thus we may produce the sounds of _a, e, o_, then, by a particular compression of the organs of utterance, modify them all, into _ba, be, bo_, or _fa, fe, fo_; and we shall see that _a, e_, and o, are letters of one sort, and b and f of an other. By elementary or articulate sounds,[86] then, we mean not only the simple tones of the voice itself, but the modifying stops and turns which are given them in speech, and marked by letters: the real voices constituting vowels; and their modifications, consonants.
OBS. 2.--A mere mark to which no sound or power is ever given, cannot be a letter; though it may, like the marks used for punctuation, deserve a name and a place in grammar. Commas, semicolons, and the like, represent silence, rather than sounds, and are therefore not letters. Nor are the Arabic figures, which represent entire words, nor again any symbols standing for