INTRODUCTION 
TO THE 
STUDY OF INDIAN LANGUAGES. 
By J. W. POWELL. 
CHAPTER I. 
ON THE ALPHABET. 
The study of an unwritten language should begin with committing it 
to writing. In this manner only can the student become so acquainted 
with its elements and characteristics as to be able to discover its grammatic 
structure and its philologic relations; and the language must be written to 
place such discoveries on record. A language cannot be written until its 
sounds are mastered, and this is no easy task. The number of distinct 
qualitative sounds that can be uttered by the human voice i$ very great, and 
without long training the ear cannot properly discern and discriminate them 
all. Inthe English language there are more than forty simple or elemen- 
tary sounds, and each one is made by a more or less complex adjustment 
and movement of the vocal organs, so that in fact no one of these so-called 
elementary sounds is strictly simple. 
In the study of the sounds of a savage or barbaric language the sim- 
plest elements into which each can be resolved are oftentimes even more 
complex than the elementary sounds of the English language. The com- 
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