1842.] General Meeting of the Asiatic Society of Paris. 437 



bian ^ is differently pronounced in different countries. The era of Maho- 

 met, for example, is pronounced Hidjret in Syria, Higret in Egypt, 

 Hijret in Arabia, etc. The confusion, arising from these variations, 

 is often very great ; for instance, the name of the present king of Lahore, 

 is pronounced Schir Singh in India ; the first part of this name is, 

 however, of Persian origin, and is pronounced in Persia Schir. How 

 then to render ? The most logical method, even in a similar case, 

 would perhaps be to adopt the pronunciation of the country where the 

 word originated ; but there fortunately are not many so complicated 

 cases, and ordinarily, the renderings of a word may be without inconve- 

 nience in conformity with the orthography of the country from which it 

 is borrowed. 



4. The last difficulty is, that the European nations likewise differ in 

 the pronouncing of one and the same Roman character, and at the first 

 glance, this appears an insurmountable obstacle to a uniform system. 

 Sir W. Jones was well aware of the confusion connected with this 

 question, especially for the English, whose orthographical system is so 

 complicated, irregular, and so deviating from the usages of all the rest 

 of Europe. He had the wisdom to propose the adoption of the Italian 

 pronunciation, and persuaded the Asiatic Society of Calcutta to consent to 

 it, which since that time has continued to follow this system, the only one, 

 by which the English Oriental scholars can be in conformity with those of 

 the continent. Subsequently Mr. Gilchrist unfortunately did all in 

 his power to undo the work of Sir W. Jones, by substituting the com- 

 plicated English diphthongs for the simple vowels of the Italians. 

 Almost all his pupils have adopted his system, and the Oriental geo- 

 graphy and history have too much resented this unfortunate alteration. 

 The oo, ee, u, have taken the place of the u, i, a, in most of the modern 

 books of the Anglo-Indians, and the authority of all the learned Socie- 

 ties of England and India has in vain up to this time opposed this 

 nuisance, though it appears to have lost ground, and we must hope that 

 the principles of Sir W. Jones will again take the lead. There remain 

 some other difficulties ; the letters g, j, e and ch, (v, w, s, z,) have in 

 every European language a different pronunciation, so that a congruous 

 alphabet could not be adopted with uniformity in all European lan- 

 guages. These difficulties, however, not being very numerous, would 

 not occasion much confusion, if every nation, as much as its idiotims 



