1888.] Alphabet to Oriental Languages, 61 



subsequent and separate consideration. Let not any then be misled by 

 the fallacious mystification of a plain question, in which the sanguine ad- 

 vocates of the Romanizing system have indulged and do yet indulge. It is 

 of course, a subsequent question what alphabet may be made applicable to 

 express the sounds of the Indian languages with the fewest, simplest, and 

 most effective modifications ; but the primary one, as to the capability of 

 any set of characters to receive an arbitrary assignment to the office of re- 

 presenting any variety of sound whatever, is that which has been, in our 

 judgment, so mischievously mystified. What, in fact, should prevent the 

 process of omission and of diacritical distinction from being applied to any 

 existing alphabet or to any newly invented symbols whatever ? 



We have, abstractedly considered, no objection to make to the adoption 

 of the Roman alphabet for written communication among a people yet 

 without one of their own. In such a case the only question with us would 

 be one of expediency, to be determined by aptitude, facility, and many 

 other special considerations. But we look upon jfche attempt to substitute 

 the Roman letters for the long established characters, among a people ac- 

 quainted with the use of written as well as spoken language, as both quixo- 

 tic and preposterous ; quixotic, because the attempt must fail of any consi- 

 derable measure of success within the lapse of ages, except by measures 

 too arbitrary and unjust to be contemplated by the most zealous advocate 

 of the plan ; and preposterous, for the following reasons chiefly — 



Because there is a positive, though not to all at first manifest, danger 

 of a progressive corruption of the sounds and confusion of the etymologies of 

 the native languages, by applying to them any other than their own origi- 

 nal alphabets. The results of the progress of independent nations, during 

 a course of ages, must not be confounded with those that may be expected 

 under the operation of a high state of mental advancement in a dominant 

 people suddenly and at once imparting their own large knowledge to their 

 conquered subjects. Therefore no conclusion against the present argument 

 can be drawn from the gradual modifications of a nation's own alphabet, from 

 age to age; nor from the ultimate disuse, among the European nations, of 

 the German character for the Roman : because these two sets of symbols 

 were substantially the same in form, essentially the same in sound. There 

 is consequently no analogy between the gradual improvement of the Euro- 

 pean alphabets, in appearance and facility of writing, &c. and the now con- 

 templated entire substitution of a foreign alphabet, altogether exotic both 

 in sound and figure, for the native Indian characters. In the former 

 case, there was no danger whatever to be apprehended of confounding 

 letters of the same organ, to the annihilation of all clear traces of the 

 etymologies of words of various origin, or of the gradual corruption of the 

 phonic powers of the letters ; in the latter there is the greatest. Thus tat, 

 that, and tat a shore, differ, in Roman character, but by the diacritical 

 point under the final t of the latter word. Now all who are versed in this 

 subject well know the extreme difficulty, and often almost inextricable con- 

 fusion, occasioned by errors and omissions in diacritical marks, in the writing 



