1842.] General Meeting of the Asiatic Society of Paris. 433 



adopted, to express the Oriental by Roman characters. At the first 

 intercourse of Europe with the East in the middle ages, oriental words 

 were rendered in a most barbarous manner, and thence arose the origin 

 of a certain number of monstrous names, some of which have been 

 retained in all languages of Europe, as Mahomet, Mosk, Tamerlan, 

 Gengiskan. Since the last half of the seventeenth century, the Latin 

 translations of some Arabian works by Pococke, Golius, and others, and 

 a little afterwards the popular works of Herbelot and Galland introduced 

 a more exact orthography, by rendering the Arabian words as faithfully 

 as the comparative deficiency of this alphabet permitted. A long time 

 people were satisfied with this method of writing, but at last, and espe- 

 cially since the discovery of the Sanscrit had enlarged the circle of 

 oriental studies, the want of a stricter method became apparent. A 

 degree of exactness was aimed at to render again in the original charac- 

 ters, what had been previously expressed by the Roman alphabet ; 

 the systems, however, previously adopted, were unfit for this purpose, 

 and whosoever attempted to reconstrue in Arabian characters verses, 

 quoted by Herbelot, must have been convinced of this. 



Since that period, systems rapidly succeeded each other. Founded 

 on the most different principles which were calculated to avoid difficul- 

 ties of several kinds, they have produced the most opposite results. 

 Sir W. Jones so early as the year 1788, complained of almost every 

 author having a system of orthography of his own. What would he 

 have said of the number of systems, and the still greater number of 

 orthographies without any system in the present day. Historians, geo- 

 graphers, travellers who never study the languages of nations, take at 

 random the different orthographies and confound them, so that it is 

 impossible to trace them to their sources, and hence ensues a mass of 

 confusion. Of this I shall give some examples by taking the easiest 

 familiar names I at present recollect. For instance, the name of Ali in 

 works of our time is found thus : " Ali, Aly, Ali, Alee, Ulee, Ullee, Alii, 

 Aliyy, Ahli, Alee." I find nine ways of expressing the word Koran : 

 " Kuran, Ckooran, Alcoran, Alcorawn, Qoran, Coran, Koran, Ckoran ;" 

 six to write the name of Aboulfeda : " Aboulfada, Aboulfeda, Abulfeda, 

 Abowlfida, Abowlfeda, and Aboulfidai," and seven for the name of the 

 legislator of the Arabs : " Mahomet, Mehemet, Muhammed, Mohammed, 

 Muhammad, Mohhammad, and Muhummud." 



