WRITING. 



123 



as showing how the vowel sounds run into one 

 another a suhject which we have had occasion to 

 touch upon in the various articles relating to the 

 vowels in this work. It is to he four.d. together 

 with his alphabet, in the fourth volume of the Me- 

 moirs of the American Academy (Cambridge, 

 1818), and is given below.* The alphabet itself is 

 as follows : 



Table of the Alphabet. 



A as in the English words far, father, &c. (But see the n,ofe 



on the vowels, i 

 B as in English, French, c. 

 1) (the same). 

 as in the English word there; and also short e, as in met, 



&c. 



F as in Fnglish, &c. 



( : English g hard, as in qame, gone, &c. 

 H an inspiration as in English, &c. 

 I as in marine, mac/tine (01 English ee; ; and also short ('in 



It nil. 



K as in English. 

 It (the same). 

 M (the snme). 

 N (the same). 



O English long o, as in robe; and also the o in fame, among; 

 above, &c., which is equivalent to the English short in 

 rtth, fun, &c. 

 P as in English, &c. 

 11 (Me name). 



S as in English at the beginning of a word. 

 T as in English, &c. 



I I nglish oo, both long and short; French ou. 

 V KagUch P. German w, Russian b, modern Greek 0. 

 %V as in English ; French ou. 

 Y as in the English words yet, you, Sec. 

 Z as in the Kngli&h, &c. 



N a tali 

 A as in ang (sounding the a itself as in father'). 



E long, as in ei/rig (pronouncing the ey, as in they); tm>\ short, 

 as in the word ginseng ; Portuguese iai finHl. 



* In considering the several letters by which the vowel 



y suc sg an ecae mocaons, a s a maer o 

 no small difficulty, in many cases, to decide in what part of any 

 one series \ve should drop the vo\yel character with which we 



, as n e 



word father, as the middle point of a series, the whole of which 



i we sou mnuey examne a numer o anguages, an 

 should endeavour to arrange accurately, in one progression, 

 all the vowel sounds belonging to this series, we should doubt- 

 je-- di-i-iiverin those languages many other slight modifications 



n pracce o ave caracers or e pncpa souns as we 

 may call them) in each series, just as, in the prismatic series of 

 rolours. we content ourselves with a few names to denote one 

 principal shade ot' each colour, without fruitlessly attempting 

 to deviie terms ot theoretical nicety, to describe the innumer- 

 able shades on either r-ide of the principal one from which we 

 set oui. If we now recur for a moment to the series above 

 denoted by A, we find on one side of it a series which we denote 

 by the letter 0, and, on the other side, a series wliich we de- 



which is represented by the letter V; and these two contigu- 



I long, as in eeng; and .jfion?, as infngj Portuguese im final. 



O long, as in owng (sounding the ow as in own) ; Frencn on ; 

 Portuguese om final. This character will also be used 

 for o short nasalized, which is very nearly the same 

 with ong in among, as this latter is equivalent to utig 

 in lung, &c. f-ee Walker's Diet., Principles, No. 165. 

 U as in oone ; Portuguese um final. 



To these should be added a character for the nasal 

 awttg or ong, which corresponds to our o in for, nor, 

 &c. And as I have proposed to denote this vocal sound 

 when not nasalized, by aw so it would be most strictly 

 conformable to my plan, to denote the same vocal sound, 

 when it is nasalized, by aw or aw. But perhaps the let- 

 ter a itself, with the cedilla (), may be used without in- 

 convenience for this broad nasal sound ; and we may 

 still, in the common vowels, reserve the simple a to de- 

 note the sound it has in the word father, and not the 

 sound of aw. For it may be found, that the first nasal 

 sound in this table is not common in the Indian lan- 

 guages ; in which case it would be best to use the simple 

 a for the broad nasal here mentioned. 

 i 



Diphthongs. 



AI English i in pins. 



AU English ow in how, now, &c., and ou in our. 

 lu Knglish u in pure ; French iou. 



YU to be used at the beginning, as iu may be in the middle of 

 words. 



Additional Consonants. 



DJ, DSH, or DZH, English.;' and dp, m judge; Frenches'. 



DH as in the English words this, that; the I of 



the modern Greeks. 



ous extremes are sometimes represented by o and sometimes 

 by u; that is, our oo. If we now take the other side of the 

 series, represented as above by A, and set out from the sound 

 which that letter has in the word fate, we enter upon a series, 

 of which the letter E may be called the representative, begin- 

 ning with its sound in the word met, which is the short sound 

 of a mfate; and this series, proceeding imperceptibly through 

 various gradations, at length vanishes in the simple, unequivo- 

 cal sound of ee, which foreign nations denote by the third 

 vowel, i. The following table will perhaps make these remarks 

 more intelligible : 



Series of the Letter A. 



FAR 



FALL 

 MORN 



Series of 0. 



MORN T.I ERE 



MORE THESE 



MOVE MARINE, &C. 



RULE, &C. 



Now, in writing the Indian languages, it will often be found 

 extremely difficult to decide, in each series of the vowel sounds, 

 to what extent, on each side of the principal or middle point 

 (as I have called it), we shall use the same vowel character, or 

 when we shall have recourse to the letter which is the repre- 

 sentative of the next adjacent series, rrom these considera- 

 tions in the case of the vowel A, though we have no difficulty 

 in using it to denote the sound of a in far, yet, when we pro- 

 ceed in the series to the full, broad sound which it has in full, 

 we feel a repugnance (arising from old habits in our own lan- 

 guage) to denoting that sound by the single vowel, and are 

 rather inclined to express it by au or aw. If it should be 

 thought that it might be denoted by o (as in for), it will be ob- 

 vious that this would only be throwing the same difficulty into 

 another series, and we should then have to decide again, how 

 far the letter o shall be employed in that series, on each side 

 of its principal sound of o in more. Now this broad sound (aw), 

 though found in the European languages, is not commonly re- 

 pre-ented in them by the letter A; and, therefore, foreigners 

 who should attempt to read any Indian language, in wliich the 

 simple a was employed to denote the sound aw, would inevita- 

 bly be misled, and pronounce the o in father. It has, there- 

 fore, seemed to me better, in an alphabet designed for general 

 use, to employ aw to denote this oroad sound, and to reserve 

 the single letter a to denote its common foreign sound, as in 

 father. I should use aw, and not , because the latter has 

 already the established power of a diphthong in the foreign lan- 

 niiairei. equivalent to our diphthong or in nan; /ion; ji'c , but 

 mi; being a combination not in common use, would attract the 

 attention of the foreign reader as a new character, and would 

 not lead him into error. Mr Du Ponceau, after much reflec- 

 tion, prefers using a alone for the sound of aw, and then denot- 

 ing the sound of a in father by the diphthong a?. His opinion 

 much diminishes the confidence I have had in my own ; but as 

 my plan was founded upon the idea of taking the common 

 European sounds of the vowels as the basis of the alphabet, I 

 have thought it would be too great a departure from it, if I 

 should give to the vowel a any other than such common 

 sound. 



