NO. 6 PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF INDIAN LANGUAGES 9 



entirely voiceless (such as often occur in America after glottal 

 stops), vocalic resonance of preceding consonants, and whispered 

 vowels are all to be expressed by superior or inferior vowels. Th^e 

 exact usage of superior or inferior vowels should be carefully 

 explained in the key in every case, so as to avoid possible confusion. 

 If it is desired to distinguish between vocalic timbres and weakly 

 articulated voiceless vowels on the one hand and vocalic glides and 

 weakly articulated voiced vowels on the other hand, superior vowels 

 (") naay be used for the former, inferior vowels (a) for the latter. 



9. The representation of vocalic qualities here recommended 

 attempts to combine, as far as possible, the requirements of ordi- 

 nary usage with the demands of a consistent scientific system. The 

 phonetic analysis serving as a basis of the system has been taken 

 from Sweet's " Primer of Phonetics." 



The five vocalic symbols serving as a starting point in this system 

 are : a, pronounced as in German Mann; e, pronounced as in French 

 ete; i, pronounced as in French fini; o, pronounced as in German 

 so; and u, pronounced as in German gut. 



Roughly speaking, the Greek forms of these letters indicate the 

 open (Sweet's wide) forms of the same sounds. For Greek omikron, 

 which would be easily confused with o, inverted c {o) is substituted. 

 Thus, upsilon (u) represents n of English full; turned c {^) repre- 

 sents of German voll; epsilon (e) represents e of English met; 

 iota (i) represents i of English it; alpha (a) represents n of English 

 hut. According to Sweet's phonetic analysis, a is the wide form of a, 

 but general usage demands the retention of a for the value here 

 recommended. The principle of simplicity (see last paragraph of 

 A, I, I ) will, in most cases, involve considerable simpHfication of this 

 system. Thus, where but one form of i-vowel is in use, the simple 

 symbol i will be used for either the close or open variety. 



Rounded forms of front vowels are to be indicated by the umlaut 

 ( " ) over the corresponding rounded back vowels. Thus, ii indicates 

 the vowel of German kuhl or French lune; o represents the vowel 

 of German schon or French bleu; v represents the first vowel of 

 German Mutze ; j represents the first vowel of German Goiter. 



The use of the umlaut may be extended to indicate high-back- 

 unrounded vowels, the corresponding high-front-unrounded vowels 

 being taken as points of departure. Thus, / and i represent the high- 

 back-unrounded representatives of i and i, in other words, the un- 

 rounded forms of n and v. Both of these sounds occur, for example, 

 in Shoshonean. 



