xxir. 



On the adoption of a MnifoTm Orthography for the Indian 



Languages of JSTorth America, 



By JOHX PICKERING, A. A. S. 



sym 



T is remarked by Sir William Joues,in his elegant JD?>gei'. 

 tation on the Orthography of Asiatick Words] that " every rnatf, 

 who has occasion to compose tracts on Asiatick literature, or to 

 translate from the Asiatick langua^ies, must always find it conve- 

 nient and sometimes necessary, to express Arabian, Indian, and 

 Persian words or sentences, in the characters generally used 

 among Europeans ; and almost every writer in those circumstan- 

 ces has a method of notation peculiar to himself : Hut none has 

 yet appeared in the form of a complete system, so that each ori- 

 ginal sound may be rendered invariably by one appropriate 

 bol, conformably to the natural order of articulation, and with a 

 due regard to the primitive power of the Roman alphabet, which 

 modern Europe has in general adopted." This accomplished 

 scholar then adds — that ^' a want of attention to this object lias 

 occasioned great confusion in History and Geography f and ^* that 

 the ancient Greeks, who made a voluntary sacrifice of truth to 

 the delicacy of their ears, appear to have altered by design al- 

 most all the oriental names, wliich they introduced into their ele- 

 gant, but romantick histories ; and even their more modern Geo- 

 phers, who were too vain, perhaps, of their own language to 



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