PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF INDIAN LANGUAGES 



REPORT OF COMMITTEE OF AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGICAL 



ASSOCIATION 



The following report is based on several meetings held in New 

 York in January, 1913, April and May, 1914, and January, 191 5, by a 

 quorum of the committee of the American Anthropological Associa- 

 tion, charged with the drawing up of a phonetic system for tran- 

 scribing Indian languages, consisting of F. Boas, Chairman, P. E. 

 Goddard, and E. Sapir, Secretary, further on correspondence with 

 the remaining member of the committee, A. L. Kroeber. 



GENERAL PRINCIPLES 



It is essential that each simple sound be consistently represented 

 by the same symbol. 



These symbols, as far as possible, should be those associated in 

 past use with sounds similar to the ones they are chosen to represent. 



For the sake of appearance and to avoid distracting the attention 

 of the reader, mixture of fonts and unusual characters should be 

 avoided unless indispensable. 



In texts accompanied by interlinear translations all characters and 

 marks of punctuation not strictly phonetic, such as capitals, commas, 

 and periods, should be eliminated excepting, however, symbols intro- 

 duced for facilitating grammatical analysis. 



In order to reduce the cost of publishing texts, only such diacritical 

 marks and accents as are essential for adequate transcription should 

 be employed. 



Where a uniform and fairly adequate system has already been 

 employed in the recording of a particular language, it will usually be 

 best to continue its use in further work with that language to facili- 

 tate comparisons and to avoid confusion. For purposes necessitating 

 the comparison of different languages and requiring phonetic accu- 

 racy the more rigid system should be applied. 



The committee considers that the needs to be met by a phonetic 

 system for transcribing American languages are several. For the 

 specialist who wishes to analyze and discuss the sounds of a language 

 a very considerable number of symbols and a variety of modifying 

 accessories in the form of diacritical marks and accents are necessary. 

 Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections. Vol. 66, No. 6. 



