Again, the _t_ of _time_ is indeed noticeably distinct from that of
_sting_, but the difference, to the consciousness of an English-speaking
person, is quite irrelevant. It has no "value." If we compare the
_t_-sounds of Haida, the Indian language spoken in the Queen Charlotte
Islands, we find that precisely the same difference of articulation has
a real value. In such a word as _sting_ "two," the _t_ is pronounced
precisely as in English, but in _sta_ "from" the _t_ is clearly
"aspirated," like that of _time_. In other words, an objective
difference that is irrelevant in English is of functional value in
Haida; from its own psychological standpoint the _t_ of _sting_ is as
different from that of _sta_ as, from our standpoint, is the _t_ of
_time_ from the _d_ of _divine_. Further investigation would yield the
interesting result that the Haida ear finds the difference between the
English _t_ of _sting_ and the _d_ of _divine_ as irrelevant as the
naive English ear finds that of the _t_-sounds of _sting_ and _time_.
The objective comparison of sounds in two or more languages is, then, of
no psychological or historical significance unless these sounds are
first "weighted," unless their phonetic "values" are determined. These
values, in turn, flow from the general behavior and functioning of the
sounds in actual speech.

These considerations as to phonetic value lead to an important
conception. Back of the purely objective system of sounds that is
peculiar to a language and which can be arrived at only by a painstaking
phonetic analysis, there is a more restricted "inner" or "ideal" system
which, while perhaps equally unconscious as a system to the naive
speaker, can far more readily than the other be brought to his
consciousness as a finished pattern, a psychological mechanism. The
inner sound-system, overlaid though it may be by the mechanical or the
irrelevant, is a real and an immensely important principle in the life
of a language. It may persist as a pattern, involving number, relation,
and functioning of phonetic elements, long after its phonetic content is
changed. Two historically related languages or dialects may not have a
sound in common, but their ideal sound-systems may be identical
patterns. I would not for a moment wish to imply that this pattern may
not change. It may shrink or expand or change its functional
complexion, but its rate of change is infinitely less rapid than that of
the sounds as such. Eve