"Guttural" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... English, before a guttural (C, G, Q, X), N is so affected as to leave its proper sound incomplete (the tongue not touching the roof of the mouth) while it draws the guttural, so to speak, into itself, as in the English words concord, ...
— The Roman Pronunciation of Latin • Frances E. Lord
... of savory fume. No skirmish, with actual war-whoop and sheen of real scalping-knife, had put this prostrate chieftain here hors du combat. He had shot himself cruelly by accident. So he informed us feebly, in a muddy, guttural patois of Canadian French. This aboriginal meeting was of great value; it helped to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... march contrary to the course of the sun, singing the war song after a particular mode, sometimes on the ten or and sometimes on the bass key, sometimes in high and shrill, and sometimes in deep and guttural notes. The waiter, or servant of the leader, called Etissu, placed a couple of blocks of wood near the war-pole, opposite the door of a circular cabin, called the hot-house, in the centre of which was the council fire. On these blocks he rested a kind of ark, deemed ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... to his courtesies only by carrying his hand to his heart and then to his forehead, in the recognized Mussulman manner. He did not speak one word of French, and yet, when Carmen passed, he said "Beautiful!" with a guttural intonation. ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina
... ceremony, Dan grasped the Oriental by the shoulders, wheeled him about, while he protested in guttural tones, and bluntly kicked the yellow-faced one through the ...
— Dave Darrin's Second Year at Annapolis - Or, Two Midshipmen as Naval Academy "Youngsters" • H. Irving Hancock
... his nativity. As the babbling voices rose and fell in alternations of argument that was almost quarrel, narrative that was sometimes diverting, and ribaldry that was never wit, it would seem as if the ruffianism of half Europe had called a conference in that squalid, horrible little inn. Guttural German notes mixed whimsically with sibilant Spanish and flowing Portuguese. Cracked Biscayan—which no Spaniard will allow to be Spanish—jarred upon the suavity of Italian accents, and through the din the heavy steadiness of a Breton voice could be heard asserting itself. Though ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... soldiers on duty, and tried to pierce through the darkness of the night, amid the steady torrent of rain. Suddenly, a shot was heard, and then another, a long way off; and for four hours they heard, from time to time, near or distant reports and rallying cries, strange words uttered as a call, in guttural voices. ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... for all Africans. However great their reputation in their own country, that was the end of it as soon as they crossed the sea. Apuleius, the great man of Carthage, had tried the experiment to his cost. They had made fun of his guttural Carthaginian pronunciation. The same kind of thing happened to Augustin. The Milanese turned his African accent into ridicule. He even found among them certain purists who discovered solecisms in ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... congregated on landings and in passageways—but everywhere they talked; while men and youths newly returned from work, lunch-can and basket in hand, listened in wide-eyed astonishment, shook incredulous heads, puffed thoughtfully at pipes or cigarettes, and questioned in guttural wonderment. ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... these little characters; but the matter became to me more and more confused. Now, it seemed, some of the first and larger primitive letters had no value in their places, in order that their little after-born kindred might not stand there in vain. Now they indicated a gentle breathing, now a guttural more or less rough, and now served as mere equivalents. But finally, when one fancied that he had well noted every thing, some of these personages, both great and small, were rendered inoperative; so that the eyes always ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... the air with much ease. It runs (in contradistinction to hopping), but not quite so quickly as some of its congeners. At times the Carrancha is noisy, but is not generally so: its cry is loud, very harsh and peculiar, and may be likened to the sound of the Spanish guttural g, followed by a rough double r r; when uttering this cry it elevates its head higher and higher, till at last, with its beak wide open, the crown almost touches the lower part of the back. This fact, which ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... say, copper complexions and coarse black hair, but not woolly like the negroes. They appeared to be talking continually. In the forecastle there was a complete Babel. Their language is extremely guttural, and not pleasant at first, but improves as you hear it more, and is said to have great capacity. They use a good deal of gesticulation, and are exceedingly animated, saying with their might what their tongues find to say. They are complete ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... distance apart of the two men was so small that the charge of shot did not spread in the least, but passed like a bullet into his body. He uttered a long guttural sigh—there was a contraction—an extension—then his muscles relaxed, and ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... eyes, as she passed these bushes, were fastened on the shed. But it seemed that someone else had discovered shelter here; for with a quick, half-guttural cry, like that of a startled animal, a small figure started up, close by her feet, and stood and edged away from her with an arm lifted as if to ward off ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... were repeated fiercely now, like the crowing of an infuriated rooster. Jaime imagined the neck of the man, swollen, reddened, the tendons vibrating with anger. The guttural cry gradually acquired the inflection and the significance of language. It was ironic, mocking, insulting; it taunted the foreigner for his prudence; it seemed ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... proceeded, by that harsh, guttural noise well known to country boys, to imitate the sound of sawing through a log. His sally was ...
— The New Minister's Great Opportunity - First published in the "Century Magazine" • Heman White Chaplin
... husband?" the woman asked; and Jees Uck gasped at the liquid silver of a voice that had never sounded harsh cries at snarling wolf-dogs, nor moulded itself to a guttural speech, nor toughened in storm and frost ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London
... female, sweeping the ground with his tail, and acting the dandy.[61] The crested duck raises his head gracefully, straightens his silky aigrette, struts and bows to his female, while his throat swells and he utters a sort of guttural note.[62] The common shield duck, geese, wood-pigeons, carrion-vultures, and many other birds have been observed to dance, spread their tails, chase one another, and perform many strange courting parades. A careful ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... warriors talked in a low voice, saying unknown words in a harsh, guttural tongue, and Henry could guess only at their meaning. But they seemed to be awaiting a signal and presently the low thrilling note was heard again. Then the warriors turned as if this were the command to do so, and came directly ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... text formatter written by Donald E. {Knuth}, very popular in the computer-science community (it is good enough to have displaced Unix {{troff}}, the other favored formatter, even at many Unix installations). TeX fans insist on the correct (guttural) pronunciation, and the correct spelling (all caps, squished together, with the E depressed below the baseline; the mixed-case 'TeX' is considered an acceptable kluge on ASCII-only devices). Fans like to proliferate names from the word 'TeX' — such as TeXnician (TeX user), TeXhacker (TeX programmer), ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... some spit-fire, hain't ye? Reckon I know what's a-bitin on ye. Ye're mad kase Uncle Dick tuk the mounting land ye gals look to heir to, to bail me and Ben." He stared at the girl ominously, with drawn brows. His voice was guttural with threatening. "So be ye mout hev to eat them words o' your'n. Mebby, when I've done tole ye a thing er two, ye'll be a-askin' of me to call ye 'honey.' Mebby, ye'll want to hover yer ole 'hon,' arter I let's ye know a thing or two 'bout ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... is her brother,' said the little Contessa, lifting her head for a moment from her book, and speaking as if to give information, in her slightly deepened, guttural English. ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... very sincere. I often stood by little groups gathered at the corners of cross streets, and listened to their musical intonations. The language is vocalic and monosyllabic. It sometimes suggests a Mongolian tongue, but without the guttural clicks and coughs. The Martians are all gifted in music. It ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... cold, calm looks of intelligence passed between him and his followers, and a few indistinct and guttural ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... and Pilsen tell of the horrors of the War of Thirty Years, for which a Bohemian nobleman was largely responsible. Of him and his doings more hereafter. Eger, by the way is now called Cheb, a guttural Ch which is a difficult sound to begin a word with, but you have got to do it if you wish to be considered up to date. The Czech language is difficult to pronounce, a fact of which the Czechs seem rather proud. Pilsen, which is ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... conducting themselves nevertheless, in matters of importance to the community, by the general maxims of reason and justice; and their treaties are always founded upon good sense, conveyed in a very ridiculous manner. Their language is guttural, harsh, and polysyllabical; and their speech consists of hyperbolical metaphors and similies, which invest it with an air of dignity and heighten the expression. They manage their conferences by means of wampum, a kind of bead formed of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... towards which my landlord advanced, and filled up an interval of silence by attempting to caress the canine mother, who had left her nursery, and was sneaking wolfishly to the back of my legs, her lip curled up, and her white teeth watering for a snatch. My caress provoked a long, guttural gnarl. ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... is guttural and harsh, and they talk a great deal, but I could never understand a single word they spoke. Their dwellings were very mean, being scarcely sufficient to shelter them. Their diet is, I believe, mostly fish, which ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... that they appeal to a human being is when their bodies crave salt. Then they run to him with a peculiar guttural cry, and, having been supplied, forget the herder immediately. Some people have tried to prove that this trait predicates a recognition of the human being as such, but it seems far more likely that they regard him with the same indifference as a giver ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... narrow thoroughfares. But farther yet to the northeast, in the Florida I best knew and loved, a whooping crane would startle the solitude with its uncanny cry, the alligators would croak their guttural grunts at waking time, while, here and there in the shadowy forest, the whine of a skulking panther would strike terror to the hearts of gentler things. Ah, the trackless wilderness of dreamy Florida, where nature moves on padded foot and ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... squaw came out immediately and took our horses. I put aside the leather nap that covered the low opening, and stooping, entered the Big Crow's dwelling. There I could see the chief in the dim light, seated at one side, on a pile of buffalo robes. He greeted me with a guttural "How, cola!" I requested Reynal to tell him that Raymond and I were come to live with him. The Big Crow gave another low exclamation. If the reader thinks that we were intruding somewhat cavalierly, I beg him to observe that ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... English, with a mixture of some French terms and idioms, adopted in a long intercourse betwixt the French and Scotch nations; that the modern English, from affectation and false refinement, had weakened, and even corrupted their language, by throwing out the guttural sounds, altering the pronunciation and the quantity, and disusing many words and terms of great significance. In consequence of these innovations, the works of our best poets, such as Chaucer, Spenser, and even Shakespeare, were become, in many parts, unintelligible ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... him; a moment later he was standing in his own hall, the object of respectful solicitude and attention. Sprucely garbed and groomed lackeys busied themselves with his battered travel-soiled baggage; the door closed on the guttural-voiced taxi driver, and the glaring July sunshine. The wearisome journey ...
— When William Came • Saki
... fastening their old grey coats around them, were standing beside a packet about to take their departure for England, for the harvest. Their uncouth appearance, their wild looks, their violent gestures, and, above all, their strange and guttural language, for they were all speaking Irish, attracted the attention of the manager; the effect, to his professional eye was good, the thought struck him at once. Here were the very fellows he wanted. It was scarcely necessary to alter ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... voice. In an unemotional state the person speaks in normal quality and in the tone that is natural to himself. If the same person is frightened or if his animosity is aroused, he speaks in an aspirated tone; if he feels harshly toward anyone or is angry, his voice possesses that guttural quality which indicates the severer and harsher emotion; when he is moved by grandeur and sublimity, his voice naturally ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... has some one strangled them? The thrice- confounded creatures!" growled the visitor in a guttural voice. "Hi! Alena Ivanovna, you old sorceress! Elizabeth Ivanovna, you indescribable beauty!—open! Oh! the ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... hard indeed to hold in high esteem The man who mouths out Eugene Aram's Dream In guttural tones and raucous. All these have heard a hundred times before Young Vox, the vain and ventriloquial bore They'd fain despatch ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 1, 1890 • Various
... in poetry, till the end of the seventeenth century. So it was with some other words, show and shew, for instance. It is, perhaps, hardly necessary to observe that the sounds k, ch, sh, kh (guttural) are commutable. Thus the letter h is named in Italian, acca; in French, ache, in English, aitch, perhaps originally atch: our church is the Scottish kirk, &c. Accordingly, we meet in Shakspeare ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 185, May 14, 1853 • Various
... were being put out by the hasty hand of the fellow whom Kendric began to long to strangle; he could hear a low guttural gurgling sort of noise rising from the thick throat, issuing from the monstrous mouth. Zoraida did not appear to hear but sat rigid, waiting. At last, when all but one opaque shaded lamp were extinguished and the room was cast into ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... to be doubted, but that in the original pronunciation gh has the force of a consonant deeply guttural, which is still continued among ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson
... up his ears at something he saw in the bushes by the roadside. Reining him up, I dismounted, and to my great surprise discovered two well-dressed men fast asleep, locked in each other's arms. 'Faith of my father!' says I, 'who's here?' A slightly guttural sound was followed by a hoarse voice answering, 'It's only me.' And then a lean figure, with two well-blacked eyes, and a face otherwise disfigured, disconnected itself from its fellow, rose to its haunches, and stared at me with wild dismay. A white neckcloth, somewhat besmeared ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... though he understood German, he spoke it but little. And so he stood quietly imbibing his bottle of beer whilst Bombastus Furiosis still held forth. His quiet attitude evidently misled the orator, whose guttural German became mixed with quite enough English to make his remarks perfectly understandable to the few ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... communications, and observations, mysteriously exchanged, succeeded the noisiest bursts of laughter;—from the very outriders to royalty itself, merriment seemed to spread. Every one began to laugh and to cry out. The magpies and the jays fluttered away uttering their guttural cries, beneath the waving avenues of oaks; the cuckoo staid his monotonous cry in the recesses of the forest; the chaffinch and tomtit flew away in clouds; while the terrified deer bounded riverwards from ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... had risen, and gave light to the room through window and open door; flooded by its rays, Rachel moved slowly across the room, uttering in guttural tones a broken chant whose meaning I might have once interpreted, but could not now. On a different occasion I might not have been an entirely unsympathetic observer of the singular sight, but here passion had overcome curiosity. I was an impatient lover. With my arm about ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... down—my best chief"—he here paused, and lifting his eyes above the heads of the auditors, his lip curling a little, but resuming again, almost immediately, its natural position, he pronounced in a low but distinct guttural tone, the Indian word meaning "my son." His eye seemed fixed for a few seconds, and then, as if conscious of his weakness, and that the eyes of the great warriors of his tribe were upon him, he looked slowly round ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall
... said, with a low, guttural tone, but with much emphasis; "and if it were possible, I would still take his medicine, and die, rather than outlive the consciousness of ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... the only Roman province in the west of Europe where a Teutonic language took root and maintained itself. Here the rough, guttural speech of the Anglo-Saxons so completely drove out the popular Latin that only six words were left behind by the Romans, when they abandoned the island early in the fifth century. More Celtic words ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... in guttural monosyllables to the chief, and the chief clucked back briefly, meanwhile eyeing me with a whimsical squint out of his puckered old eyes. ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb
... know pretty much eferything, wie es scheint!" was the reply, uttered in so deep a guttural that Blythe knew the old Viking did not take very seriously the "bit of weather" that seemed to her so violent. In fact, he owned as much before he had finished ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller
... sound of breathing, and with it a mumbling noise, as though the apparition were talking to itself. Two eyes seemed to gleam through the darkness. There was a hissing yet guttural sound, human in quality, yet ...
— The Film of Fear • Arnold Fredericks
... guttural salutation. It was Captain Hegermann, the commander of the ship, a big florid Saxon with great bushy golden whiskers and a basso voice like Edouard de Reszke. He was imposing in his smart uniform and gold braid and his manner had the self-reliant, authoritative ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... view this seemed a brave plot. No one objected to the treachery. All the guttural sounds that broke from the throng of listeners were made for ...
— Four American Indians - King Philip, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Osceola • Edson L. Whitney
... to me to have a Mark Tapley temper; the more unendurable the weather got, the cheerier he grew with his guttural and yet limpid cries to the oxen, and his brisk steps ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... again, as usual, we continued our journey, until a favourable camping-place presented itself. During the night, while I was on watch, I heard a singular cry, ceaselessly repeated, which resembled the words, "Down-ka-dou, down-ka-dou," accented in a guttural tone. I waited until I was relieved by Carlos; then, instead of lying down, rifle in hand I crept towards the point whence the sound proceeded, when I saw a tall bird standing in the water, every now and then darting forward, poking his long bill ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston
... 'markable," returned the stranger, in profound guttural accents, "considerin' as how I ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... occupants of the boat heard random, guttural grunts, a smashing of dead branches, crashing of undergrowth, and the proud ring of mighty antlers against the trees. The lord of the forest, a big bull-moose, was tearing recklessly through the woods towards the lake, in answer to the ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... Suburanus, which appears as SVC. Here C no doubt represents G, but there is no interchange between g and b in Latin. In other dialects of Italy b is found representing an original voiced guttural (gw), which, however, is regularly replaced by v in Latin. As the district was full of traders, Subura may very well be an imported word, but the form with C must either go back to a period before the disappearance of g ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... and in their place is something finer; Emotions of a transcendental cast Preoccupy the luncher and the diner; The Hun, in short, by being forced to fast, Has grown ethereal, more alert, diviner; And, purged of all incentive to frivolity, His speech has almost lost its guttural quality. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 24, 1917 • Various
... many months, the human voice has quite a startling effect upon you—or even the human sneeze, Miss Norah!" added the Hermit, with a twinkle. "I stopped short and listened with all my might. Presently the voice came again, low and guttural, and I ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... on in thick guttural voices, diffusing a smell of lager-beer so strong as they spoke that it reached August crouching in his stronghold. If they should open the door of the stove! That was his frantic fear. If they should open it, it would be all over with ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... Frenchman. She ventured to ask him if such was not the case; and, on his admitting it, she further inquired if he had not passed a considerable time in Germany, and was answered that he had; her quick ear detected something of the thick guttural pronunciation, which, Frenchmen say, they are able to discover even in the grandchildren of their countrymen who have lived any time beyond the Rhine. Charlotte had retained her skill in the language by the habit of which she thus speaks ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... laughed in his guttural way; but though he held the gun poised, he did not shoot. He was playing with his victim as a cat plays with a mouse ...
— Do and Dare - A Brave Boy's Fight for Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... substitute for the foreign sound some sound from our own language. Our vocal organs, too, do not adapt themselves readily to the reproduction of the strange sounds in another tongue, as we know from the difficulty which we have in pronouncing the French nasal or the German guttural. Similarly English differs somewhat as it is spoken by a Frenchman, a German, and an Italian. The Frenchman has a tendency to import the nasal into it, and he is also inclined to pronounce it like his own language, while the German ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott
... short teeth, full lips and a dark complexion. She reminds one of an over-fed tabby cat, of doubtful temper, and her voice seems to reach utterance after traversing some thick, soft medium, which lends it an odd sort of guttural richness. She moves quietly but heavily and has an Asiatic second sight in the matter of finance. In matters of thrift and foresight her husband places implicit confidence in her judgment. In matters of generosity and kindness implying the ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... valise. Aware that it contained nothing contraband, I opened it innocently and demonstratively. At the sight of that resonant cavity, gaping from ear to ear and belching forth gloves, kerchiefs and minor haberdashery, the dragon laughed: his mirth took the form of a deep, guttural, honest German guffaw. He still, however, rapped sonorously on my box, shaking his head from side to side like a china mandarin. In his view my box was luggage, and luggage is not permitted in any European park. Relieved to find that my detention was not more serious, my first thought was ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... not, however, understand a word that was spoken. The tones were first high, then low, never guttural, and possessed a certain sibilant quality. Whether the words spoken were English or not, was likewise ...
— Ruth Fielding on the St. Lawrence - The Queer Old Man of the Thousand Islands • Alice B. Emerson
... the inspector's random jest—how Gully, with one hand slid into his breast, and the other dragging at his great drooping moustache (mannerisms of his) had joined in the general laugh with his hollow, guttural ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... various sources which I have examined, the alphabet of the lengua universal appears to have been as follows: a, b, d, e, (rarely used at the commencement of a word), g, j, (an aspirated guttural like the Catalan j, or as Peter Martyr says, like the Arabic ch), i (rare), l (rare), m, n, o (rare,) p, q, r, s, t, u, y. These letters, it will be remembered, are ...
— The Arawack Language of Guiana in its Linguistic and Ethnological Relations • Daniel G. Brinton
... bright tin bucket which the younger man carried, but it intensified the gloom around them. Both had on their backs bags filled with lumpy things, like bundles. They were talking cheerfully, and the sound of their rough voices and guttural laughter reached Thorne before the men themselves came abreast of his position. The negro with the bucket was relating an anecdote. Thorne caught part ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... energetically, sizing each other up critically. Then they sat down and shot questions, while Abbott looked on bewildered. Elephants and tigers and chittahs and wild boar and quail-running and strange guttural names; weltering nights in the jungles, freezing mornings in the Hills; stupendous card games; and what had become of so-and-so, who always drank his whisky neat; and what's-his-name, who invented cures for ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... most astonishing story which Francisco Suarez, gold-miner and prospector, laid before an exceedingly attentive audience. As the man spoke, so did he recover the freer usage of a civilized tongue. At first his words had a hoarse, guttural sound, but Dr. Christobal's questions seemed to awaken dormant memories, and every one noticed, not least those who had small knowledge of Spanish, that he had practically recovered command of the language at the end of ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... it was all the more surprising that a gracious creature like Liane could have sprung from their midst. They were a beetle-browed, dark race, with gnarled muscles and huge, knotted joints, speaking a guttural language all their own. Few spoke the ...
— Priestess of the Flame • Sewell Peaslee Wright
... unexpectant quiescence of old age, are but part of the same life's journey; as the bright Italian plains, with the sweet Addio of their beckoning maidens, are part of the same day's travel that brings us to the other side of the mountain, between the sombre rocky walls and among the guttural voices ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... frisky and gay young people, carried the day quite over the head of the solemn old philosopher under the calla-leaves. At night, when all was still, he would trill a joyous little note in his throat, while old Unke would answer only with a cracked guttural more singular than agreeable; and to all outward appearance the two were as good friends as their ...
— Queer Little Folks • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... or Amma, several times mentioned, appears to be the Old Testament land of Ham, in northern Bashan, near Damascus (Gen. xiv. 5). The Hebrew is spelled with the soft aspirate, not the hard guttural. It may perhaps be connected with the name of the "Amu" of ...
— Egyptian Literature
... pleased as a child over his success, vowed he was ready for all the tourists impudent enough to think they had a right to share Versailles with us, and, when a group of Germans talked their guttural way towards us, he had us all down on our knees, before we knew it, nibbling at the grass like so many Nebuchadnezzars escaped from Charenton—an amazing sight that brought the chorus of "Colossals" to an abrupt stop, and sent the ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... into large pieces and passing it on a big earthen platter. The Indians eagerly seized the hot meat and began to devour it. While waiting to be served, some of the young braves danced at the fire's edge with short, explosive, yelping, barking cries answered by dozens of guttural protesting grunts from the older men, who sat eating or eagerly waiting their turn to grab meat. It was a trying moment. Would the whole band leap up and start a dance which might end in boiling blood and tiger fury and a massacre? But the young Huron brave stopped ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... There were sounds—deep, guttural voices raised in dispute or threats; he saw a group of shadowy men, swaying, pushing, crowding under the trees. The firelight glimmered on a gilt button here and there, on a sabre-hilt, on polished ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... very little that first afternoon. She watched the people around her, and listened as they discussed the points of the horses, the cowgirls and the jockeys with equal impartiality. She heard their bets, their guttural grunts of disapproval with the judges' decisions, their roars of satisfaction when the right horse won. She watched the cowgirls, walking unconcernedly about the ring, flapping their riding-whips against their leather boots. She watched ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
... guttural sound of assent. Then his new-born scientific ardour seemed to struggle with his rustic costiveness ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... venerable silk skirt dripped with rain upon the carpet. An extraordinary-looking figure indeed; and it would appear that eccentricity was not confined to appearance only, for the stranger returned the girls' salutations with wriggles of the body, and began at once to talk in a soft guttural voice, running her words together without any stops, and at such express train speed that every now and then she was obliged to stop short, and give a deep ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... still; the sunshine was faint and flickering; the low, guttural notes of a rain-crow broke suddenly on ...
— The Young Mountaineers - Short Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... to the cucumbers, pies, and eggs that the gentry were eating, he concentrated himself on the gadflies and horseflies that were fastening upon the horses' backs and bellies; he squashed his victims apathetically, emitting a peculiar, fiendishly triumphant, guttural sound, and when he missed them cleared his throat with an air of vexation and looked after every lucky one that ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... would not answer. He hugged himself as though he were vastly pleased, and laughed, in his low guttural way, and after ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... nodded, and the slit of a smile would gape between the nose and the meeting chin. A high good humor appeared to reign among the groups; a carnival of merriment laughed itself out in coarse, cracked laughter; loud was the play of the jests, hoarse and guttural the gibes that were abroad on the still air, from old mouths that ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... behold. This person entered the doctor's office as if he had been entering a railway station, without even bowing. He stopped to say, in a voice that resembled that of Punch, its tone was so nasal and guttural: ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne
... of those inferior bands inhabiting the land when this nation came from the West and took possession of the country. Their language they preserved, and it is remarkable it was never acquired by white or red man, unless he was reared from infancy among the tribe. It was guttural entirely, and spoken with the mouth open, and no word or sound ever required it to be closed for its pronunciation. They had dwindled to a handful at the time of his capture, but more obstinately determined to remain and die ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... been preserved in memory from the days of their forefathers. [Footnote: The disappearance of a vocal element from a language is a phenomenon with which etymologists are familiar. The loss of the Greek digamma is a well-known instance. The harsh guttural, resembling the German ch. which formerly existed in the English language, has vanished from it, leaving its traces in the uncouth orthography of such words as plough, high, though, and the like. Within the past three centuries the sound of I has been lost from many ...
— The Iroquois Book of Rites • Horatio Hale
... of a boy, made an unintelligible, guttural sound in his throat and remained where he was, evidently considering it of paramount importance that he should see ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... her hand timidly and touched him, and made the guttural sound that was his name. He turned over and raised himself on his arm. His face was pale, like the face of one who is afraid. He looked at her steadfastly for a moment, and then suddenly he laughed. "Waugh!" ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... part dependent upon the vibrations at each of these situations mentioned above. Consonants may accordingly be classified as they are formed at the three places of interruption—lips, teeth, and fauces respectively: (1) labial; (2) dental; (3) guttural. ...
— The Brain and the Voice in Speech and Song • F. W. Mott
... having once heard it, could ever mistake that singular voice, alternately guttural ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... strange expression of her eyes as she sang and the trance-like appearance she maintained. Another noticeable fact was the intense attachment of her dogs, which centred their eyes constantly upon her and accompanied her movements with strange guttural sounds. ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... through a vista in the trees, they looked down on the lake and the hamlet that clustered near it. Down the road that wound through the trees towards it passed labourers going homeward from their work, with cheerful guttural cries to each other and a herd of cows sauntered by with bells melodiously chiming, taking leisurely mouthfuls from the herbage of the wayside. In the village, lying low in the clear dusk, scattered lights began to appear, ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... visited by several friendly Arabs, short and thin, but strong and sinewy people. Their complexion was yellowish-brown, their eyes were small and vivacious. An assumed dignity barely disguised their native vivacity, and their guttural speech reminded us very strongly of the Jews. Their dress consisted of a rough cotton shirt, a white woolen cloak and a red and yellow kerchief, half-silk, which each man had fastened about his head with a string, just as you see it on ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... sodden under foot; a breath from the south stirred the pines to an Aeolian response and moved the stiff, dry leaves of the scrub-oaks. A sapsucker was marking an accurate circle of dots round the throat of a tall young maple, and enjoying his work in a low, guttural soliloquy, seemingly, yet, dismayingly, suggestive ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... ravishing swagger, half-lifted wings, and deep, guttural hissing, the lover approached again. He suddenly lifted his body, but she coolly rocked forward on the limb, glided gracefully beneath him, and slowly sailed into the Limberlost. He recovered himself and gazed ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... wagon, between the wheels. Then taking a long breath, and wondering at myself the while, I stooped down so that my voice might go well beneath; but paused as I was about to speak, for I could hear in duplicate a deep guttural snore. At that moment Joeboy pinched my arm; and, drawing a deep breath, I growled out in the best imitation I could of ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... to a guttural command, he dropped the weapon and raised his hands, as the professor ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... this much about the place from hearsay," he said in a guttural whisper. "It's supposed to be haunted. I've heard more than one of these jays,—big huskies too,—say they wouldn't go near the place after dark for all the money ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... had subtly changed their timbre so that ever amid the shrill yelling I marked the guttural snarls of baffled rage. The Mohican lay on his belly behind a tree, silent, but his eyes were like ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... harmless birds. He always indulged himself, however, in one shot at a mark, and was becoming sure in his aim at stationary objects. One evening, however, when we were almost ready to retire, a strange sound startled us. At first it reminded me of the half-whining bark of a young dog, but the deep, guttural trill that followed convinced me that it was a screech-owl, for I remembered having heard these ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe
... massa," said a thick guttural voice from below; "only me," repeated the voice pleadingly. "Goramighty, ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... guttural shouts in German and fainter answers. Fortunately the guard did not take upon himself the responsibility of shooting down into the boat, and in a minute or two the refugees had assembled the oars and were rowing furiously from ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... approved. Nor does this by any means exhaust the catalogue of Italian virtues. As a rule, Italian singers have a better ear for pitch, breathe more naturally, and execute more easily than German and French singers, whose guttural and nasal sounds they also avoid. The difference between the average Italian and German singers is well brought out by Dr. Hanslick, in speaking of the Italian performances which formerly used to alternate with the German operas in Vienna: "Most of our Italian guests," he says, "distinguish ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... obstinate until persuaded with sticks. The driver used neither reins nor whip, but liberally employed the drift wood along the banks. Clubs were trumps in that day's driving. The team was turned to the left by a guttural sound that no paper and ink can describe, and to the right by a rapid repetition of the ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... the excitement caused by the risk of discovery. When in the villages he seldom opened his lips except to reply briefly to his companion's talk, for a chance word might be overheard. When he spoke it was in a guttural voice, as if he suffered from some affection of the tongue or malformation of the mouth which prevented him speaking clearly; and thus, had any villager overheard the conversation between him and Ibrahim, his defective Arabic ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... all, however, was that of Sam Weller, no less to the enjoyment of the Author, it was plain to see, than to that of his hearers. After old Weller's hoarse and guttural cry from the gallery, "Put it down a wee, my lord," in answer to the inquiry whether the immortal surname was to be spelt with a V. or a W.; Sam's quiet "I rayther suspect it was my father, my lord," came with irresistible ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... groups about the steps: or around the shell-fish dealers' trays in these courts; whereof the damp pavements resound with pattens, and are drabbled with a never-failing mud. Ballad-singers come and chant here, in deadly guttural tones, satirical songs against the Whig administration, against the bishops and dignified clergy, against the German relatives of an august royal family: Punch sets up his theatre, sure of an audience, and occasionally of a halfpenny from the swarming occupants of the ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... trade, surplus stocks of the dried Adresol weed, pelts, beaver and grey fox, wolf and seal. And for these they demanded equipment and supplies for the open season's hunt. They were mainly a good-natured and unsuspicious crowd whose guttural tongue was harsh and very voluble. They needed handling. Essentially they needed handling ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... high opinion has of either music or musicians," said one of the disputants, a lean, dried-up looking man who spoke with a strong guttural accent. This was Dr. Pepusch, musical director at John Rich's theatre, the "Duke's," Portugal Street, Lincoln's ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... of the most astonishing poems, vague, unrhymed, unmetrical lucubrations, incoherent, bizarre; now a Christian Scientist, a lean, grey woman, whose creed was neither Christian nor scientific; now a university professor, with the bristling beard of an anarchist chief-of-section, and a roaring, guttural voice, whose intenseness left him gasping and apoplectic; now a civilised Cherokee with a mission; now a female elocutionist, whose forte was Byron's Songs of Greece; now a high caste Chinaman; now a miniature painter; ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... of battle, the retainers dividing and forming in lines opposite one another, and about one hundred yards apart. The proceedings were conducted by two marshals on foot; they began by forming the spearmen in line, with emphatic guttural commands, stamping of the feet, and flourishing of gilt batons, to the end of which wisps of paper were attached. All were habited in magnificent armour: some wore complete suits of mail; others chain armour, lined with gorgeous silks. Broad lacquered hats were here and there substituted for ...
— Sketches of Japanese Manners and Customs • J. M. W. Silver
... thing, my leddy," he said, with the most ingratiating politeness. "Ye'll no forget the witnessing as weel as the driving, when ye pay me for my day's wark!" He laughed with guttural gravity; and, leaving his atmosphere behind him, stalked out ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... A curious, guttural whine, down there in the forest, attracted his attention. Over to the window he strode, ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... into a great rage, muttered a few words to pock-marked Ratz, and then staggered toward their lame travelling companion to bar her passage across the threshold, and ask, in angry, guttural tones, how much of the Groland gold she had flung into ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... seeing-man to paint with his pen, was there. Grim hirsute Hyperborean figures, they pass mostly mute before us: burly, surly; in mustaches, in dim uncertain garniture, of which the buff-belts and the steel, are alone conspicuous. Growling in guttural Teutsoh what little articulate meaning they had: spending, of the inarticulate, a proportion in games, of chance, probably too in drinking beer; yet having an immense overplus which they do not so spend, but endeavor to utter in such working as there may be. So have ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle
... etiquette of mourning to go for a season with neglected persons and blackened faces. All this was told me in the intervals of shaking hands, and offering and receiving condolences in the most uncouth, guttural language I had ever heard. Their Father at length dismissed them, with a promise of some presents to help dry up their tears. It must not be inferred that the grief of the poor little widow was not sincere. ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... shaggy ponies, there with trailing war-bonnet and decked with paint and barbaric finery, his robe cast aside,—there like an orator of old stood the Indian chief in the heat of his impassioned appeal. All eyes were upon him, all ears drinking in his words. Guttural grunts of approval rewarded each resounding period. "You're too late," muttered Boynton. "He's been getting in his work to good effect. You should have ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... with Amraphel is now generally accepted. At first the guttural "h", which gives the English rendering "Khammurabi", presented a serious difficulty, but in time the form "Ammurapi" which appears on a tablet became known, and the conclusion was reached that the softer "h" sound was used and not the guttural. The "l" in the Biblical ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... Thereupon Bismarck took two of the mugs in immediate succession; poured their contents down his throat, evidently with great gusto; and a burly peasant just back of me, unable longer to restrain his admiration, soliloquized in a deep, slow, guttural, reverberating rumble: "A-a-a-ber er sieht sehr-r-r gut aus.'' So it struck me also; the waters of Kissingen had evidently restored the great man, and he looked like a Titan ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... Then fix your teeth in the same manner and buzz like a bee. You write z pointed this way." "Now put your teeth together and say j, written with a dot." At the next lessons the throat-letters were given; first the hard guttural was sounded, and they were told three ways to write it, c, k, q, distinguished as round, high, and with a tail. C was not sounded see, but ke (ke, ka, ku). Another lesson gave them the soft guttural g, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various |
