PREFACE xvii 



nunciation is to be based on any principle at all, it 

 should be based upon the practice of the best educated 

 people, not the worst. There is only one correct way 

 of spelling the word in English, and that is Hajji; 

 it is the simple and natural way; what justification 

 can be given for an attempt to confuse the reader by 

 any other spelling? 



In accordance with the principle that vowels 

 should be pronounced as in the continental languages, 

 the reader will find Thuri, instead of the more familiar 

 but more misleading Thoory; and so on through the 

 list. Certainly the English pronunciation of vowels is 

 not so simple and rational that we should desire to 

 perpetuate it in words from an oriental language. 



The appearance of the letter q unaccompanied by 

 the vowel u, which always attends it in English, may 

 at first cause a little surprise, but there is no valid 

 argument against it. I use it to transliterate the 

 Arabic letter Qaf, which is properly pronounced like 

 a gutteral ck in stick, but colloquially is often pro- 

 nounced like g, whence we have Deglet for the more 

 correct Daqlet. 



Most of the changes which I have made in date 

 nomenclature have been due to the necessity of 

 purging the list from incorrect French influence and 

 bringing it into line with the usage of the whole 

 modern scientific world, including the French; at 

 other times I have substituted the classical form, 

 which would be used by all educated men, for some 

 vulgar dialectal form, as Kasbeh for Kseba. Arab 

 names are not easy for the layman often they 

 bother even the expert; but I believe that they will 

 offer fewer problems now that they are made system- 

 atic, and if the reader is still unable to twist his 



