OF ASIATICK WORDS. 3I 



with another in the form of a diphthong ; but in Per- 

 Jian words it is a confonant, and pronounced like our 

 va, though with rather lefs force. 



Then follow three fibilants, the firft of which is 

 often, very inaccurately, confounded with the fecond, 

 and even with the third: it belongs to that clafs of con- 

 fonants which, in the notation here propofed, are ex- 

 prefTed by acute accents above them, to denote an in- 

 verfion of the tongue towards the palate, whence this 

 letter is called in India the palatine fa. It occurs in a 

 great number of words, and mould be written as in 

 pald'sa, the name of a facred tree, with a very brilliant 

 flower. In the fame manner may be noted the sad of 

 the Arabs and Hebrews, which laft it refembles in fhape, 

 and probably refembled in found; except that in Ca'smir, 

 and the provinces bordering on Per fa, it is hardly dif- 

 tinguifhable from the following letter. 



The fecond is improperly written Jlia in our Englijk 

 fyftem, and cha, ftill more erroneoufly, in that of the 

 French ; but the form generally known may be retain- 

 ed, to avoid the inconvenience of too great a change 

 even from wrong to right. This letter, of which fa 

 and ha are not the component parts, is formed fo far 

 back in the head, that the Indians call it a cerebral. 

 Either it was not articulated by the Greeks, or they 

 chofe to exprefs it by their Xi ' ; fince of the Per fan 

 word Ardajliir they have formed Artaxerxes. 



The dental fa, which refembles the Hebrew letter of 

 the fame found, and, like that, is often mi/taken by 

 ignorant cop) ills for the ma. 



The 



