188 Report on Writing Indian Words [No. 8, New Series, 



The Dravidian Alphabets. 



All the Southern races have adopted the Arian phonetic 

 system except the Tamil people, and they, while retaining 

 their own peculiar system of letters, have formed a second 

 alphabet, founded on the Arian, for Sanscrit literature, which 

 has been extensively cultivated among them. This is called 

 the Grand'ham character. 



The Telugu, Canarese, and Malay alam nations have 

 taken the Nagari letters under altered forms, but with the 

 Sanscrit classification and arrangement. The same Roman 

 characters therefore will, so far, serve for all. 



Many of the Tamil and some of the Telugu letters are 

 liable to changes of sound with reference to their position or 

 to their derivation from Sanscrit, and some discussion took 

 place regarding the propriety of providing distinct Roman 

 equivalents for such sounds.* 



* "Of the Sanscrit letters, all vowels except the four medial and two 

 " final are common to Tamil ; as are also the first and last letters of the five 

 " classes of consonants ; the four, following in order, from uj ; and that written 

 " 6cr ; twenty-five in all. The remaining twenty-ci^ht undergo change." 

 N annul, Book iii. Sutr. 19. 



