32 ON THE ORTHOGRAPHY 



The ftrong breathing ha, but rather mi fplaced in the 

 Ndgari fyftem, fince it is the fecond element of articu- 

 late founds. The very hard breathing of the Arabs may 

 be well expreffed by doubling the mark of afpiration, 

 as in Muhhammed ; or by an accent above it, in the 

 manner of the long vowels, as in Ahmed. 



The Indian fyftem of letters clofeswith a compound 

 of ca and /Jia, as in the word par icflid, ordeal : it is ana- 

 logous to our x, a fuperfluous character, of noufe, that 

 I know of, except in algebra. The Bengalefe give it 

 the found of cya, or of our k in fuch words as kind and 

 Jky: but we may conclude, that the other pronunciation 

 is very ancient, fince the old Perfians appear to have 

 borrowed their word Rac.pi.ah from the RacJJia, or de- 

 mon of the Hindus, which is written with the letter be- 

 fore us. The Greeks rendered this letter by their Khi, 

 changing Dacjhin, or the fouth, into Dakhin. 



All the founds ufed in Sanfcrit, Arabick, Perfian, 

 and Hindi, are arranged fyltematically in the table pre- 

 fixed to this differtation ■* and the fingular letter of the 

 Arabs, which they call din, is placed immediately be- 

 fore the confonants. It might have been clafTed, as the 

 modern Jews pronounce it, among the flrong nafals of 

 the Indians ; but, in Arabia and Perfia, it has a very 

 different found, of which no verbal defcription can 

 give an idea, and may not improperly be called a nafal 

 vowel: it is uniformly diitinguifhed by a circumflex 

 either above a fhort vowel, or over the letter preced- 

 ing a long one, as ilm, learning; ddlim, learned. 



* Plate I. 



Agreeably 



