ON THE ALPHABET. i 
sounds in the two languages would illustrate beautifully that change of 
consonants which has been described as being in conformity with Grimm’s 
laws. 
When the phonology of our Indian tongues is thoroughly understood, 
much light will be thrown upon the whole science of phonology, and some 
of the most important facts to be collected in relation to this matter are 
connected with these synthetic sounds and their differentiation in aberrant 
languages. The student should carefully determine the group of element- 
ary letters in any synthetic sound, and constantly employ some one of the 
corresponding characters to represent it, and in his description of his 
alphabet the whole matter should be fully explained. 
COMPLEX COMBINATIONS. 
The student is apt to find combinations of sound with which he is 
unfamiliar, and which will cause no little difficulty. The consonant sounds 
will be found to come in an order with which he is unacquainted, and 
which it will be difficult for him to pronounce. Some of these combinations 
may be very long—three, four, or five consonants being used in one 
syllable, i. e., without an intervening vowel. All such complex sounds 
should be carefully analyzed and their constituents represented by appro- 
priate letters. 
SOUNDS FOR WHICH NO LETTERS HAVE BEEN PROVIDED. 
The student will in all probability discover sounds and peculiarities of 
sound for which no provision is made in the above alphabet, and yet the 
Roman characters will serve him for their representation by adopting the 
simple device of inverting them. In so doing he should be guided by the 
analogies of the system here laid down, All of the letters cannot with 
safety be inverted. 
The following only can be used in this manner: 4, @, @, d, d, ¢, @, @, @, 
g, h, 2, 1, k, 1, m, 6, 6, 6, 7, t, v, w, Y. 
Still the student has another resource. Letters may be doubled, but 
this should be a last resort. 
The preceding characters are tabulated below, and examples given to 
indicate their use as recommended. 
