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



not ventured to adopt, but which we consider to be worthy 

 of farther consideration. 



Besides these, there are seven other letters peculiar to the 

 Draviclian dialects, which were probably once common to all, 

 but the whole of which are found in Tamil alone at the pre- 

 sent day. They are er ep> en p and &3 or o°o * Of these 

 the three first only, have been retained in Telugu and Can- 

 arese, and the five first in Malayalam.J The two last are 

 confined to Tamil. 



The two vowels are simply the short sounds of e and o, 

 and as the corresponding Sanscrit vowels are always long, 

 and are so designated in the scheme at page 9, no farther 

 provision is required for them. 



The Tamil m, Malayalum , and Telugu and Canarese 



V, is not unknown to the Nagari alphabet, and is still found 

 in the older Sanscrit of the Ve'das, but it has fallen into dis- 

 use. It comes under the head of cerebral sounds, and is 

 therefore properly represented by I with the mark assigned 

 , to that class. 



The Tamil p, or Malay alam O, has the force of a prolonged 

 palatal r, of which the Hindi J seems to be the Urdu equi- 

 valent. In its re-duplicated form it becomes tt and will be 

 rightly typified by these corresponding letters with the palatal 

 sign — or r and tt 



The next letter Lp, which is confined to Tamil and Malay- 

 alam, may he termed the vexata litem of the Dravidian, as 

 ^ is of the Semitic tongues. 



For the difficulties which impede the appropriate render- 

 ing of this sound, we refer to Appendix A. p. 21. The various 



* Note :— In Nannril, it is said that the letters g&, £D, and <scr 

 only, are peculiar to Tamil, together with some peculiar sounds of vowels Ccalled 

 " dependant letters) with the exception of vowel-consonants and prolonged 

 vowels". Book iii. Sutr, 23. 



■\ Peet's Grammar, p. 7. 



