America, adept, quota, &c., and must never be confounded with the sound of a, in mate, fate; fall, all; far, tar, &c. i, the short or shut sound, as in fit, sit, pin, &c.—never as in fine, mite, pine, &c. u, the short obtuse sound-as in bull, pull-never short, as in but, rut, &c.-nor long, as in mute, pure, secure, &c. Simple Consonants. b, has its regular sound, as in bed, bell, &c. d, has the soft dental sound formed with the point of the tongue, slightly pressed on the roots of the upper teeth, nearly as in duke, due; or still more nearly, as the soft French dental d in des, &c. f, has its regular sound, as in fit, fix, &c. g, has its regular hard sound, as in got, go, &c.-never soft, as in gender, gentle, &c. h, has its regular sound, as in house, horse, &c. It is the letter that expresses the aspiration of any other. j, has its regular sound, as in jam, join, &c. n, has its regular sound, as in nap, nay, &c. It is the nasal that corresponds with the dental letters. p, has its regular sound, as in pot, pan, &c. 66 q, has nearly the same sound as in quack, clique, quoit, &c. It has been happily described by Gilchrist, as " our k articulated by raising the root of the tongue simply towards the throat, which must not be in the smallest degree ruffled. The q may consequently be styled a deep, but liquid lingual letter, produced by clinking the root of the tongue against the throat, so as to cause a sort of nausea. The same sound will be recognized when pouring water in a particular manner from a long-necked goglet, as the liquid decanting may represent the lower part of the tongue acting upon the throat or neck of the vessel in question, unruffled by the water gushing from it." r, has its soft sound, as in morn, scorn, &c. s, has its regular sound, as in his, dusk, &c. t, has the soft dental sound, formed with the point of the tongue, slightly pressed on the upper front teeth, nearly as in tube, tunic, &c. It resembles, says Dr. Carey, the provincial pronunciation of t in butter in Yorkshire. It also resembles as nearly as possible, the soft French dental t in tu, &c. v, has its regular sound, as in vain, vale, &c. w, has its regular sound, as in way, wet, &c. y, has its regular sound, as in yea, yes, &c. z, has its regular sound, as in zeal, zone, &c. The greater part of the foregoing letters may be employed directly, with the sounds now explained invariably annexed to them, to represent corresponding letters in the Sanskrit and Persian alphabets, thus: mnpqrs tw vyz Sans. अ इ उ ब द ग ह ज क ल म न प रस त व य ف دب 1 1 1 .Pers گ فاد I ل زي و و ت س ر ق پان م In this clear, distinct, and satisfactory manner, can all those letters that are of most frequent occurrence be directly expressed by Roman letters, unmarked by accents or points, and uncompounded. II. We come now to a class of letters, the sounds of which not being radically diverse from the fundamental sounds already expressed, may be accurately represented by certain appropriate marks. In these the difference exists chiefly, either in the elongation of short vowel sounds, or in a varied pronunciation of consonant sounds. And for the sake of distinction and uniformity, it is proposed to distinguish elongated sounds by accents placed above, and varied sounds, by dots placed underneath. Long Vowels. á, with an accent, has invariably the long broad sound, as in father, call, ball, &c. é, with an accent, has invariably the long broad sound, nearly as in there, or as ei in neighbour, or exactly as e in the French tempéte, fléche, &c. í, with an accent, invariably as long slender i, in police, or as ee in feel, sleep, &c. ó, with an accent, invariably long, as in note, cold, &c. ú, with an accent, invariably the long obtuse sound, as in rude, rule, &c. Consonants with diacritic marks, &c. d, with a dot below, is the hard palatial d, formed by forcibly striking the tongue against the palate or roof of the mouth; nearly like din dull, ladder, &c. The English d may be said to be somewhat softer than this Indian d, and somewhat harder than the Indian dental d. It, however, more nearly resembles the former than the latter. Still, as the latter occurs ten times more frequently than the former, it is deemed advisable to restrict the dot to the former; on the principle that it is expedient to employ diacritic marks as little as possible. h, with a dot below, is the common h, sounded more forcibly in the throat, nearly as in hay, hot, &c. nnn, with one, two, or three dots below, are nasals corresponding respectively to the three classes of linguals, palatines, and gutturals. The latter two are not often used, unless compounded with another letter. The reason why there are so many nasals is thus distinctly explained by Haughton, " In the Déva Nágarí alphabet no change takes place in sound without a corresponding change in writing; in consequence, as the sound of the nasal entirely depends upon the consonant, by which it is followed, it will, for this reason, depend upon the latter, what form the nasal shall assume in writing. As an example, the sound of n in king is different from the sound of n in lent, (and from the sound of n in launch,) and for the first the guttural n would be required, and for the last the lingual n, (and for the other the palatine n,) if it were desired to represent these words in Déva Nágarí characters; because the g of king is guttural, and the t of lent, lingual," (and the ch of launch, palatine.) Hence n is sounded with the point of the tongue reverted to the palate, as n in lent: n," by pressing the whole breadth of the tongue into the hollow of the palate, the tip turned downwards, and by forcing the sound through the nose, with the mouth open, something like gn in the French digne :" n like the French n in sans, bon; or like ng in ring, sing, &c. ss, with one or two dots below, like s in see, sin, &c. These are only introduced to distinguish two Persian letters, the sounds of which, as used by the people of India, are in reality identical with that of the common s, i. e. possess the same phonic value. t, with a dot, stands exactly in the same relation to t, as d does to d. It is uttered by striking the point of the tongue on the palate, nearly as in tub, tin, &c. t, with two dots, and a slight shade of difference in the sound, is the Persian toé, so marked to correspond with zoé of the same class of letters. zzz, with one, two, or three dots below, are all of them sounded by the people of India, like ≈ in zeal, zone, &c. They are here adopted merely to distinguish three Persian letters that differ in form, but not in sound. The following, then, are the letters that may be clearly represented by Roman characters, with diacritical marks: ع í ό úd hnnns s ي آي ण ञ ङ て t t ? ? ? ट ث ص ن ظ ض ط a, with a dot below, may represent the singular vowel-consonant E named ign, as in sign. "It is," says Shakespear," one of the guttural letters, being formed in the lower part of the throat. It's sound has been compared to the voice of a calf calling its mo * The mode of using these will be explained more fully afterwards. ther, or to that of a person making some painful exertion." "This letter," says Mr. Yates in his valuable Hindústání Grammar," is generally pronounced like a or i, sometimes long and sometimes short." When short, it may fitly be expressed by a, i. When long, by á, í, agreeably to the notation already explained. To mark the distinction of these vowels from the others, a dot is placed below them. III. We next proceed to describe those letters, chiefly compound, that may most satisfactorily be represented by a combination of two or more Roman characters. Anomalous Vowels, and Diphthongs. ri, with a dot under it, to distinguish it from the consonant r, is reckoned a vowel in Sanskrit, and is pronounced, as in rill, rich, &c. rí, is the same sound elongated, as in marine, or ree in reed. li, is nothing, but ri with the liquid I placed before it, and pronounced simultaneously. lí, is rí, with the liquid I similarly placed before it. ai, which is compounded of a and i, and is pronounced like ai in aisle, oi in oil, or ie in die, &c.-but a little broader. au, which is compounded of a and u, and is pronounced like ou in our, ow in owl, &c.-but a little broader. To these are commonly added °, or ang, a very strong nasal, as in gang; and :, or ah, a silent h, generally employed as a final. Compound Consonants. There is a class of consonants which many have accounted simple sounds, for the expression of which there is no single letter in the Roman alphabet. But these have been, and may be, adequately represented by an appropriate combination of letters. These letters are c, g, k, s, ≈, followed by h-not the strong aspirating h, but h soft and subservient, i. e. h so modifying the sounds of c, g, k, s, ≈, as to aid in producing the peculiar sound required, thus: ch, is sounded invariably like ch in cheat, church, China, &c. gh, or Persian gh-ign, with a dot below it, to distinguish it from the aspirated Sanskrit g, soon to be noticed. It is a peculiar guttural sound, like the Northumberland r-or that sound which is heard when gargling the throat with water. kh, or Persian khe, with a dot below it, to distinguish it from the aspirated Sanskrit k. It is a guttural sound like the Greek x, as pronounced by the Scotch; or ch in the Scotch word loch; or ch in the German macht. "It is," says Gilchrist, "the rough guttural k, pronounced in the very act of hawking up phlegm from the throat." sh, is sounded exactly like sh in shine, shell, &c. sh, with a dot below it, is pronounced in the same way as sh; and is so marked, because it has a distinct letter in Sanskrit, and as a G G sibilant, belongs to the class of linguals, which have been similarly marked. zh, is sounded exactly like in azure, s in pleasure, or the French j in jour. There is another class of consonants compounded of single letters and the aspirate, i. e. aspirated consonants. To express the aspirate, the Greeks employed a small mark like an inverted comma (). The Romans substituted h; and this latter is, for various reasons, the most convenient for the expression of the Indian aspirates. These, by the annexation of h to the single consonants, may be most significantly represented. Care must be taken, however, not to pronounce the consonants with the aspirate as one sound, which generally happens in the European alphabets. Each letter in the combination must have its sound audibly enunciated, though both sounds be closely united. b'h or bh, is b aspirated and pronounced as in Hob-house; or, dropping the first syllable, b-house. ch'h or chh, is ch aspirated, as in church-hill; or, dropping the first part, ch-hill. d'h or dh, is the dental d aspirated. d'h or dh, is the lingual d aspirated, as in cold-hand, or d-hand. gh or gh, is the hard g aspirated, as in dog-house, or g-house. j'h or jh, is j aspirated, as soft g in college-hall, or ge-hall. k'h or kh, is k aspirated, as in milk-house, or k-house. p'h or ph, is p aspirated, as in up-hill, or p-hill. t'h or th, is the dental t aspirated. t'h or th, is the lingual t aspirated, as in fat-hen, or t-hen. These illustrative words are written at length, to convey, if pos sible, the notion of the consonant and the aspirate's being each distinctly enunciated: and they are contracted, to shew that in the enunciation of the combined letters, they must not be too much separated. The following, therefore, are all the combined letters required to complete the representation of the Indian Alphabets : |