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CEYLON BRANCH ROYAL ASTATIC SOCIETY. 



it is ; but the fact itself speaks a deeper language, arid it is 

 this, and no more than this, that where such an alphabet has 

 existed any length of time, society has been stationary, 

 humanity has been at a stand. 



It is not necessary here, however, to enter into the ques- 

 tion how far letters, or symbols of sounds, should be nu- 

 merically carried, in order to vary exactly with the sounds 

 which they represent. That is a question for those who 

 have to consider the case of languages using great variety of 

 sounds, as those of the restless North generally do, With 

 regard to the original Singhalese, and even the vernacular 

 language of this Island, there are perhaps few tongues in the 

 world, scarcely the Italian itself, which so small a number 

 of letters would correctly express, and certainly there are 

 none in Asia to which the Soman alphabet could be applied 

 so nearly as it stands in European books. 



But it is asked by the spirit of Asiatic resistance to 

 change, what good would result though this were done, and 

 oriental books henceforth written in Roman character? In 

 answer to this, I would -say, that it would not be a few 

 pages, which would exhaust a statement of the advantages 

 of such a change ; but the following among others, may be 

 mentioned here in reference to the Singhalese. 



I. The mass to be educated in ' Ceylon, would be put on 

 the same advantage- ground, as the masses in Europe ; they 

 would not require to master more than one alphabet, whether 

 for English, Singhalese, Pali or Tamil ; and for acquiring 

 this one, they would only have to acquire a set of letters, so 

 distinct, that no child tends to confound any of them, except 

 perhaps, b and d, and their inverted forms p and q, and that 

 only for a time ; while in the Singhalese alphabet, it is so 

 far otherwise, that in the Singhalese spelling book used by 

 the School Commission, the first lesson after the alphabet 

 itself is to teach the child to discriminate two letters <S° and 



